Pokemon Go Cheat Fools GPS with Software Defined Radio

Using Xcode to spoof GPS locations in Pokemon Go (like we saw this morning) isn’t that much of a hack, and frankly, it’s not even a legit GPS spoof. After all, it’s not like we’re using an SDR to spoof the physical GPS signal to cheat Pokemon Go.

To [Stefan Kiese], this isn’t much more than an exercise. He’s not even playing Pokemon Go. To squeeze a usable GPS signal out of his HackRF One, a $300 Software Defined Radio, [Stefan] uses an external precision clock. This makes up for the insufficient calibration of the HackRF’s internal clock, although he points out that this might also be fixed entirely in software.

Using SatGen and a conversion tool that comes with the software-defined GPS signal simulator gps-sdr-sim, [Stefan] turned a *.KML-exported GoogleEarth path into a *.CSV file that can be played back by the GPS simulator.

After firing up the GPS transmission, he found his avatar running happily through the Pokemon world. Someone still has to write the code that lets you navigate freely and actually catch ’em all, but it looks doable, and we are curious to see how and if it will affect the game. For the novice SDR cheater, [Stefan] has some extra advice: Disable A-GPS on your device and use a signal attenuator on the SDR (a shielded box should do).

A legit GPS spoof might still exceed the efforts and investments the average player might want to undertake. Meaning, that if done right, you might actually get away with it. If done wrong however, the legal consequences might be even more severe. But how many players will actually go so far to try this? And will Niantic be able to reliably detect SDR cheaters? What do you think? Let us know in the comment section!

Thanks to [sabas1080] for the tip!

Filed under: gps hacks, nintendo hacks

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