GPS can be fooled, overcoming standard protection, claimed US researchers.

In December 2003, the US government detailed seven countermeasures against GPS attacks.

"We're fairly certain we could spoof all of these, and that's the value of our work," said scientist Dr Todd Humphreys.

Humphries is part of a team from Virginia Tech and Cornell University which has programmed a briefcase-size GPS receiver used in ionospheric research to send out fake signals.

The receiver is placed in the proximity of a navigation device, where it anticipated the signal being transmitted from the GPS satellite.

"Almost instantly, the reprogrammed receiver sent out a false signal that the navigation device took for the real thing," said Cornell.

The enabling software technology that allowed signals to be sent out in real time was developed at Virginia Tech by Dr Brent Ledvina and the university has filed a provisional patent application.

By demonstrating this vulnerability of GPS receivers, the researchers believe that they can help devise methods to guard against such attacks.

"Our goal is to inspire people who design GPS hardware to think about ways to make it so the kinds of things we're showing can be overcome," said Professor Mark Psiaki of Cornell.

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