On a remote island, these GPS hackers are preparing for an invisible war

Energy grids, data networks, stock markets: how easy is it to shut down our modern world by attacking the systems that synchronise time and space? Meet the jammers finding out.

Harald Hauglin is a toweringly tall man with a salt and pepper beard, wire-framed glasses, and an impish grin. When I met him in September 2024, the pocket of his mandatory hi-vis vest displayed a patch showing a white rabbit on the run with a clock. 

Hauglin is chief engineer of time and frequency metrology at the Norwegian Metrology Service. He is also a "Nerd of the Northern Lights" – a nickname adopted by attendees at the 2024 Jammertest.

Hosted annually by the Norwegian authorities, Jammertest is an open-air hacking festival set on a remote island 300km (186 miles) north of the Arctic Circle. Its aim is simple but mind-bending: to use satellite signals to mess with time itself – and see if receivers in everything from clocks to drones can withstand the pressure.

At the heart of this experiment is a technology that runs much of our modern digital world: Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).

We tend to think of satellite networks such as GPS as tools for navigation. Yet they also do something else just as important: they transmit ultra-accurate time. Power grids, telecommunications networks, stock markets, transit services and more all depend on the synchronisation provided by GNSS. 

But the importance of GNSS to infrastructure also creates an Achilles' heel. Satellite transmissions are weak, and can be overwhelmed or hijacked by stronger, nefarious signals.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, such interference has risen dramatically. The most obvious impacts have been on aviation. In May of this year, an RAF plane experienced GPS jamming near the Russian border, while in September 2025, the Swedish Transport Agency said that interference was a daily occurrence. 

Norway's government is now one of several preparing for a world in which GNSS could become a strategic vulnerability.      

So, is it possible to prepare for an attack on our sense of time and place itself? Each year, dozens of engineers, physicists and officials head to the Arctic Circle to find out.  

Jammertest: The world's largest open resilience-check for satellite jamming

The setting for Jammertest is the village of Bleik on Andøya, a tiny, remote island often used to study the Aurora Borealis. The picturesque venue resembles an engineering summer camp, the epic Arctic scenery and daily waffle buffet all part of the appeal. Yet its purpose is deadly serious.

Jammertest was only in its third official year when I visited, but the idea of testing commercial GNSS receivers to see how they react under intense, if artificial, interference is not new. 

For years, the US military has been running tests to show how receivers react when GNSS is manipulated, held at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. These tests are tightly controlled, however, including what data can be shared after the fact. 

The Norwegians take a different approach, modelling the test event on the white-hat hackathons beloved in the tech industry, where hackers probe for chinks in cybersecurity armour to make software better. Crucially, these tests are done openly, in full view of any visitors to Andøya, and attendees share the results of their tests with other government and commercial attendees on the final night of the event. 

Over the several days I attended the 2024 Jammertest, I sat next to Hauglin in the log cabin-style Bleik Community House, trying not to spill coffee on expensive electronic equipment as he and his colleagues unleashed staged........

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