http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/06/...searchers-say/
A small surveillance drone flies over an Austin stadium, diligently following a series of GPS waypoints that have been programmed into its flight computer. By all appearances, the mission is routine.

Suddenly, the drone veers dramatically off course, careering eastward from its intended flight path. A few moments later, it is clear something is seriously wrong as the drone makes a hard right turn, streaking toward the south. Then, as if some phantom has given the drone a self-destruct order, it hurtles toward the ground. Just a few feet from certain catastrophe, a safety pilot with a radio control saves the drone from crashing into the field.

From the sidelines, there are smiles all around over this near-disaster.
Professor Todd Humphreys and his team at the University of Texas at Austin's Radionavigation Laboratory
have just completed a successful experiment: illuminating a gaping hole in the government’s plan to open US airspace to thousands of drones.
They could be turned into weapons.
“Spoofing a GPS receiver on a UAV is just another way of hijacking a plane,” Humphreys told Fox News.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/06/...#ixzz1zitVd8Eh

kinda sad, that, the news dept is allowed to publish that for anyone to see and start working on duplicating.

No surprise. I was wondering when this would finally surface, any geek worth his salt can make this happen. This has been my beef with surveillance drones along. Flying a drone over rural Afghanistan or even Texas is a far cry from flying one Chicago. Too much big money and politicians hungry for the cash. Since the government is cutting back and military spending and trying to wind down the war in the middle east the only place to turn the technology loose is going to be on the American public. It frosts my butt when some idiot says if you're doing anything wrong you don't have anything to worry about. Shallow thinking by most people.

So much for using unencrypted GPS data for domestic drones, (if anyone considered that a possibility)

HA HA HA! I just noticed that. That is an ABSOLUTE CLASSIC!

At the way wifey and I both have been shuffled between doctors, I hope we don't run out of Bonanzas.

I don't forsee the military handing over their GPS codes to civillian companies or local law enforcement, and I don't know if the satelites have the capability to transmit more than one code. This is a good way for the FAA to comply without really complying. Just require all drones to fly with encrypted GPS data.