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Germany, Seeking Independence From US, Pushes Cyber Security Research (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the cutting-reliance dept.

Germany announced a new agency earlier this week to fund research on cyber security and to end its reliance on digital technologies from the United States, China and other countries. From a report: Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told reporters that Germany needed new tools to become a top player in cyber security and shore up European security and independence. "It is our joint goal for Germany to take a leading role in cyber security on an international level," Seehofer told a news conference with Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen. "We have to acknowledge we're lagging behind, and when one is lagging, one needs completely new approaches."

4 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Not surprising... by ph1ll · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... after Obama wiretapped the German leader's 'phone.

    --
    --- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
    1. Re:Not surprising... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ... after Obama wiretapped the German leader's 'phone.

      Well, let's not forget that Merkel and co are not overwhelmed by Trump either and see him as a threat to global peace.

      That's two presidents in a row that Germany has had legitimate grievances with, and they came from either side of the political spectrum. It is perfectly understandable why Germany might not see the US as a very reliable ally.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  2. You an North Korea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Russia's going to make it's own US free Internet. Iran's going to make it's own US free Internet. Venezuela is going to make it's own US free Internet and bypass US sanctions with it's own cryptocurrency. Germany is going to make its own cyber security thing, whatever that is, unfettered by those rascally Americans.

    One problem with Germany's brilliant plan; Germany simply doesn't have the intellectual base in computing to build anything like parity with the US; Germany isn't the place the originates the operating systems, protocols, programming tools and cryptography that dominate computing because Germany doesn't foster the computing ecosystem of the US; the excessively regulated employment regime of Germany is anathema to the merit driven IT business, so nothing akin to Silicon Valley has ever emerged in Germany or any other Western European nation for that matter. The simple truth is the Russia has produced vastly more software in wide use around the world today than Germany. Hell, even Ukraine programmers and software companies are more prominent.

    This is an empty and pathetic announcement; sad on so many levels.

  3. Re:"When one is lagging, one needs new approaches" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Given the raise of insular behaviour among the big countries recently, and considering that the same trends have been reacted to already in the HPC area, with the idea of an European HPC chips, the independence in all things economically and militarily necessary is increasingly prudent. If the big countries are gunning for a conflict among themselves, EU area might not want to be left in an increasingly impossible situation as the trading stops and missiles start flying.

    There is still a long way to an emergency socialization of the strategic companies and technologies, and the mass employment to build, say, a Europe wide quantum information network.