Slashdot Mirror
German Bundeswehr Recruiting Hackers
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."
So why does a beer company need Hacker Kommandos? Is it because they're Beglium now?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
what with this being an english site and all.
This being slashdot and all, nobody would actually read the article anyway.
I would think most modern nations employ hackers these days. I'm sure much of America's hacking talent make a tidy salary working for the NSA.
From a handy Google translating robot: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2FMedienbericht-Bundeswehr-baut-Cyberwar-Einheit-auf--%2Fmeldung%2F127082&sl=de&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
The first sentence of TFA says that "not only will it do the security of IT systems but also carry out..."
Why does everyone focus immediately on the "black hat" side of the story, and neglect that the group is supposed to do BOTH sides, which in some ways, is a good aspect of ANY security team... just hopefully, your security team follows ethics.
And I imagine that the Bundeswehr is going to follow ethics as well, "no hacking friendly networks......... overtly".
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
German Armed Forces. It's a reasonably well known term even in the English speaking world not to mention that it only takes a second to google it and it can be inferred fairly easily from the summary as well. Now, linking to an article in German without any kind of English translation, that is pretty dumb
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
It's the German army. I don't think it's that difficult to figure it out from context for English readers, but I speak German so I'm probably not the best person to make that judgment.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Right.
Why is common sense called that if it's not common?
... it would be nice if you could post a link to a full article in English, what with this being an english site and all. No, babelfish doesn't count.
Yes, we should ignore all foreign articles until they've been officially translated, even tho' translation tools are adequate to give you the gist of an article
I mean - it's not like there's any Germans who read Slashdot & will translate in the comments or anything is it?
My pics.
Timmy, great article, by the way. 99% of your readers have no idea what it's about.
Only 1% of Slashdot readers know how to use Google translate?
It's the German Army.
Now I'll yield the floor for Godwin.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The Bundeswehr is recruiting hackers? I'm sure Bayern Munich will get the top recruits as they often do, though I'll keep rooting for FC Kaiserslautern (FCK). Football and hacking finally meet, and I'm in heaven.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Wrong. But right on google, but were lazy here. ;) And yeah no translation = why the fuck did you post it.
Why is common sense called that if it's not common?
Dude translate is a bit dodgy at best, does the phrase 'do not want' ring a bell? Anyhow... lol
Why is common sense called that if it's not common?
"And even if the cyber attack on Estonia in retrospect, not as a "war" browsed meanwhile shall any State which is a substantial electronic IT infrastructure operates, potential threats posed by cyber attacks seriously."
Jaja, aber Kartoffelbrei, ich bin mit der Fernsehturm verheiraten. I can fix it for you! Super hero acht klar!
Dieses hax0rs wollen siene gelÃck zu hax0r nicht-unsere aber others netwÃrk getesten. Jemand wollen SS uniformen zugaben before entlich der communist volk probieren sind!
Or well, maybe I leave it to the native germans after all.
RE:German Bundeswehr Recruiting Hackers If it tastes anything like American Bundeswehr, they'll have a hard time keeping them.
It's the German Army.
Now I'll yield the floor for Godwin.
Grandparent was as ignorant as a Nazi.. ;)
Jokes aside though, one of the things the Germans learned from WWII was not to have an army only consisting of professional soldiers, who live in their own bubble and are shielded from contact with the 'normal' people (e.g. simply by just living in army bases). That way it is much easier to control them and give them orders normal people would not follow so blindly.
The current Bundeswehr consists of people being drafted from the normal population.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr
Perhaps you could post a link to an English version of the article instead of just complaining that somebody else didn't?
No?
Perhaps you should just keep your whining to yourself then.
P.S. If you don't like Babelfish, vielleicht sollst du Deutsch lernen.
It's like Project Icarus all over again.
being proud of you own ignorance sure makes you look like a hero!
Ok I wasn't clear. From Wikipedia: "The Bundeswehr has 200,500 professional soldiers, 55,000 18-25 year-old conscripts who serve for at least nine months under current rules [4], and 2,500 active reservists at any given time." So 20% of the soldiers are still obtained from the "normal" population (and some of them will stay to become professional soldiers).
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
Actually, the constitutional safeguards still work in Germany, so it will likely be more like "no hacking anyone else's networks ever, unless we've already properly declared war and the bureaucracy is done approving the paperwork." (At which point the war is probably over anyway.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Where do I sign up? Can we keep it quiet?
Not that it will be really difficult keeping these pople out, but many networks have not been attacked because of lack of an attacker. One more group that fills the role and increases the need for working defenses. Incidentially, bad times for Microsoft as well and generally for systems without competent administrators. But then, a competent administrator was allways and likely will allways be a requirement for professional computing. C
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If I sign, will they give me that cool german helmet?
839*929
Yes, we should ignore all foreign articles until they've been officially translated, ...
And it's not as if this is specifically an English-language site anyway, is it? I mean, look at the URL -- ".org". Not ".us", ".uk", ".au" or anything nation- or language- specific. The URL clearly indicates that it's supposed to be a pan-national site.
(Yes, I know what the FAQ says. The URL sends a stronger and more direct message than the FAQ, however.)
bundeswehr (who are they? why do I care?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundeswehr In short, the German army/navy/air force/etc.
All links are leading to German pages. No guarantees on the accuracy of the translation, especially the military terms.
German Bundeswehr's idea of recruiting hackers in order to 'penetrate, manipulate and damage
You get the 'penetrate, manipulate and damage' with Budweiser or any beer, but why hackers only? Carnage for all I say!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Great, now why wasn't any of this information in the story? :)
The constitutional safeguards still work? How exactly would the limits on the actions of the Bundeswehr be any different from the secret "Federal trojan" and other unauthorized methods which have been employed without constitutional authorization? Safeguards are a nice concept but you need people that are actually afraid of getting caught in them.
... it would be nice if you could post a link to a full article in English, what with this being an english site and all. No, babelfish doesn't count.
Can't read the German one? Bad luck, Bro.
1) Because it's common knowledge 2) If you didn't know, I've been told that idiots commonly use www.google.com to bolster their grasp of simple facts
Ahh, the German Bundeswehr. Of course! I was wondering what those guys were up to.
Who or what is the German Bundeswehr and why should I care?
Jeez, guys, nobody ever saw a WWII movie?
Timmy, great article, by the way. 99% of your readers have no idea what it's about.
It's not the fault of the poster, that you are all illiterate, and do exchange czech beer manufacturers (Budweiser) with one your few remaining allies, who's ass is still on line in your f**ked up war in Afganisthan. (Bundeswehr)
You are in a war. There's that enemy airplane approaching you. You know that your armation will not survive the attack, so your only chance to survive is to shoot that plane. However, your weapons are defunct due to some computer problem. There's currently no "special circumstances" staff there. However there's someone there with the necessary knowledge to fix it, and he'd have a chance to fix it before the enemy plane arrives. But there's this damn directive that you are not allowed to improvise or workaround on tactical levels IT, and the IT department put every possible measure into the software to enforce this policy ...
The last thing you'd want in a war is to forbid improvisation.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The current Bundeswehr consists of people being drafted from the normal population.
(Emphasis mine)
I would certainly contest that. The Draftees, for the most part, are a nice enough crowd, but God help us should we ever have to engage in a full-scale military operation against a traditional armed force. The median IQ on the "executional" level is not exactly stunning, to say the least.
The Bundeswehr has quite a history of misplacing vehicles and weapons on their own exercise areas, and I had the questionable pleasure of experiencing first-hand how prone to getting lost even with maps and GPS a lot of the lower rank officers are. Horrifying, really. Our OpenStreetmap volunteers and geo cachers can muster better strategic movement than our citizens in uniform.
There certainly are very fine men and women in our armed services, and I mean no disrespect to them. But the Bundeswehr as a whole is an embarrassment. Part of that is due to underfunding, part is due to infighting amongst branches, part is simply due to stupidity, and the rest gets whacked by politics: No-one wants our soldiers to go anywhere because of Germany's past image, so they get bad gear and budget cuts, but when an opportunity arises to look good internationally (so-called peace-keeping etc.) our politicians are all too eager to ship them out by the thousands in no time. Our army is too small and underpowered to defend us, but too immobile and too badly managed to attack anyone.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
So I'm not the only one who read that as Budweiser!
Incidentally Hacker is a brewery.
Say out loud: I'm an Aspie and I'm somewhat proud, I guess. Uh. Can I write an email in all caps instead? Hm...
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/news/Report-claims-German-armed-forces-setting-up-cyberwar-unit--/112595
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
Because everyone knows what is US navy or USAF ... You should care because US has just managed to pull whole world into financial crisis, so we would appreciate if you look a bit further then inside of your borders.
And .us would also not mean English-language as the the US has no official language.
And Hawaiian is an official language in the state of Hawaii.
-- SouNerd.com
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
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 ;)
(Yes, I know what the FAQ says. The URL sends a stronger and more direct message than the FAQ, however.)
It's not as if 'US-centric' necessarily means English only. Other languages are spoken there.
The "Bundeswehr" (german military arm) is currently in the process of building a "cyberwar unit", which does not only protect it's own infrastructure from attacks, but also conducts reconnaissance and manipulation operations on foreign computers, respectively in foreign networks. According to information from "der Spiegel" (a german weekly newspaper), the unit consists of a couple of dozen computer science degree holders barracked in Rheinbach close to Bonn. Currently the "hackers in uniform" are still training, bound to be operational not before next year.
Organisatorily the top secret unit is part of "strategic reconnaissance" and is lead by brigade general Friedrich Wilhelm Kriesel. No comment on the report was to be had from the Bundeswehr as yet. According to the constitution, the "german defense army" is not allowed to conduct tasks within the country, although there have been plans to remove this prohibition for some time.
While experts are debating worldwide wether such a term as "cyberwar" is correct or not, because in such a war there are no dead or wounded, there seems to be agreement that defending such threats is the duty of the armed forces of a country. Even if the cyberattack on estonia cannot be said to have been a war in retrospect, every nation that runs any substantial electronic IT-infrastructure takes potential threats by cyperattacks seriously. (pem/telepolis)
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.
Yes, we should ignore all foreign articles until they've been officially translated, even tho' translation tools are adequate to give you the gist of an article
Quite. After all this being the Internet, it's not like it interconnects any networks all over the planet, or if /. had been around for any amount of time and had drawn English speaking people from all kinds of places.
So let's stick to articles from the US or (very occasionally) Air Strip 1. After all all other people must hate freedom as shown by their willingness of living outside of the US (and speaking funny languages with weird characters that aren't even proper ASCII).
I mean - it's not like there's any Germans who read Slashdot & will translate in the comments or anything is it?
Now that's just crazy talk.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Reichswehr
Wehrmacht
Bundeswehr / Nationale Volksarmee
Bundeswehr
Armed Forces. Means literally "Federal Defense"
Vieleicht solltest Du auch erst einmal deutsch lernen ...
Are we going to get faulty spelling flames in German now?
Why? Who here's gonna notice?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
No?
Yes.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
the best hackers are still freelancers. Is hacking going to become an act of war in the future?
If that's the case, the freelancers are going to send us all back to the dark ages.
They won't stand for cyber-terrorism by the world's armies.
They're using their grammar skills there.
So, this is the WindowSS division ? Do their caps Death Head's have their skulls replaced with computers displaying the Blue Screen of Death ?
Oh, I can smell the burning karma... at least I hope it's just karma.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
"This being slashdot and all, nobody would actually read the article anyway."
It's easier, in this case, to just wait for Godwin to show up.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yes, yes, we all should google things we don't know. But it's not really common knowledge--I just asked 5 intelligent, educated people, and none of them had any idea. But hey, now you can feel even more superior!
And was there really any reason not to say "German military"?
What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
Trilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks one language?
American.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Bundeswehr is an established word which describes German armed forces. It is used in many languages not only german. And this word is in Oxford dictionary too.
It is similar to Sputnik, for example. Not that uncommon for any language to use foreigh words, you now...
Ok, I can crack a WEP network in under 30 minutes, does that make me qualified?
If you get your own "Das Keyboard" in the Bundeswehr -- I'm all for it.
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.
Good point, but it would be interesting to know, what the 1955 Bundeswehr soldiers have done between 39-45. And don't tell me, that all of them were kids that time. Or can the leopard change his spots where you come from?
mod grandpappy up puhleeeeeezzzzee!
So the grammar sucks. It's still better than the grammar of most posters here.
We do need a protection of our websites and services, but not by a small secret army unit.
What we need is training the civil police in every country, in every city, in every village all over the world to take care of vandals, extortionists, etc. by an organized international effort. With the participation of the programmers' community.
Instead they invented the wheel again, a small isolated secret unit. Instead of the global work, which is indeed to be done, they do nothing and cover it up by a pseudo-news.
Well not only grammar but some of the words don't translate well either, or are in the wrong spot or left out entirely. Sometimes it makes no sense whatsoever, but anyways I digress...
Why is common sense called that if it's not common?
You could always read the English version in the UK edition... http://www.heise-online.co.uk/news/Report-claims-German-armed-forces-setting-up-cyberwar-unit--/112595 It's a pretty good translation
Sollte wohl niemanden ueberraschen, da man ja nach ``de Joden'' zu einem neuen Feind gehen muss. :-)
What do you mean, "do not want"? As soon as German-speaking people have "corrected" the sentences of this article on Google Translate it should be fairly readable...
I am not devoid of humor.
It's from Starwars episode 2 translated from English to Chinese and then back to English again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBsm2HiLubY
Granted if they are fixed by people that actually know what it should say then that would be different, but when, if ever does that ever happen?
Why is common sense called that if it's not common?
Oh, I see! I never knew that that phrase actually had an origin. Interesting to know.
I am not devoid of humor.
Yeah there's a whole slew of funny lines from that movie in other clips, I've seen some that are several minutes before, just have to search about for them.
Happy hunting.
Why is common sense called that if it's not common?