German Bundeswehr Recruiting Hackers 156
bad_alloc writes "Heise.de tells us about the German Bundeswehr's idea of recruiting hackers in order to 'penetrate, manipulate and damage hostile networks.' (Note: The following passage has been translated from German into English: 'The Regiment is stationed in Rheinbach, near Bonn, and consists of several dozen graduates from Bundeswehr universities. They're training at the moment, but the 'hackers in uniforms' are supposed to be operational by next year. This regiment officially belongs to the "Kommando Strategische Aufklärung" (strategic reconnaissance) and is commanded by Brigadier General Friedrich Wilhelm Kriesel. The Bundeswehr has not said anything to this regiment yet.' You can find the full article in German."
In English (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is this really news? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The German Bundeswehr (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr [wikipedia.org]
Re:The German Bundeswehr (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That's great and all, but... (Score:5, Informative)
bundeswehr (who are they? why do I care?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr [wikipedia.org] In short, the German army/navy/air force/etc.
Manually translated (Score:4, Informative)
All links are leading to German pages. No guarantees on the accuracy of the translation, especially the military terms.
Re:Sweet... (Score:1, Informative)
Except during WWII the German armed forces were known as the Wehrmacht, not Bundeswehr.
English version of article. (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/news/Report-claims-German-armed-forces-setting-up-cyberwar-unit--/112595
Re:That's great and all, but... (Score:5, Informative)
I'll give it a shot. The page this article is from (heise.de) is probably the closest to a german ./ there is. The original article that is referred to in this text was published in the Spiegel (Translation: mirror), a well-known german magazine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Spiegel [wikipedia.org]
The Bundeswehr is said to set up a "Cyberwar unit", which won't only protect the (army's or Germany's, not explicitly stated) own IT-infrastructure but is also supposed to carry out reconnaissance or manipulation "in opposing networks". ./ article) and is led by the Brigade General (whatever rank that is)Friedrich Wilhelm Kriesel. There haven't been any comments from the Bundeswehr regarding this report. According to the Basic Constitutional Law the German army is not allowed to carry out any functions/missions in the inland (meant is that they may not carry out police or secret service work, etc.... within germany) but there have been plans to abolish that restriction for quite some time.
According to information of the Spiegel, the troup is made out of a few dozen computer science alumni of the Bundeswehr's universities.
According to the Hamburg-based news magazine the "hackers in uniform" are still in training at the moment but should be fully ready next year.
The top secret (har har) unit is supposedly under the command of the "Kommando Strategische AufklÃrung" (like they said in the
While experts are still debating wether a term like Cyberwar is correct since there are neither killings nor injuries in such a war, there seems to be an agreement that the defense against such threats should be one of the duties of a nation's army. And even if the Cyberattack on Estland wasn't termed a "War" afterwards it's true that every state that runs a substantial IT-infrastructure is taking potential threats of cyberattacks seriously.
Americans mangling up random german words never fail to amuse me ;)
Re:The German Bundeswehr (Score:1, Informative)
Jeez, guys, nobody ever saw a WWII movie?
You haven't, apparently. Otherwise you'd know that it was the Wehrmacht back then, the Bundeswehr came to existence only a decade after the war.