![]() Harald Fechner remembers this well, as the hacking attack against the journalist led him to the last step of his 28-year career at the BND. Not only did the spies read the e-mails of the minister – officially a friend of Germany – but also mails from the German journalist Susanne Koelbl. The public learned about the hacker unit one year later, when it is revealed that they infiltrated the computer network of the Afghan Ministry of Trade. ![]() Within the spy agency, the hackers became famous in 2007 when one of them eavesdropped on his girlfriend’s romantic e-mails with a Bundeswehr soldier, this so-called LOVEINT incident makes the rounds internally. Like every department of the spy agency, these hackers are constantly changing their name: until August 2008, they were called „Unit 26E“ (Operational Support and Listening Technology), then „Working Group TX“ (IT Operations) and finally „Sub-Directorate T4“ (Cyber Intelligence). His command of the SIGINT Directorate also includes a secret hacker unit, responsible for „operative technological attacks on IT systems“ all over the world. He had more than a thousand spies „specifically intercepting communication streams“ – via radio waves, telephone cables and tapped fibre-optic cables. Until his retirement in June 2009, Fechner was head of the BND’s Signals Intelligence Directorate and therefore responsible for the spy agency’s internet surveillance. That is what the engineer Harald Fechner testified in the German parliamentary committee investigating the NSA spying scandal two years ago. Like many people, the German foreign spy agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) buys a copy in 2005, to „get familiar“ with this internet. „If you’re an Internet newcomer and want to get up to speed without all the intimidating technical jargon, The Internet For Dummies has you covered.“ That is how the publisher promotes its book in the popular „For Dummies“ series. Translation support by Anna Biselli and Kirsten Fiedler. ![]() This is a translated version of our original German reporting.
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