You will be surprised to learn where I heard about how to hack a satellite. Spoiler: This group also taught me a ton of other things.

For more than 20 years, I have been an active reserve officer in the Swiss Armed Forces. Right now, I am preparing for my next military duty period, which is due to take place next week.

Every time, I need to juggle business and family life around the military service. Military service is an additional strain on your time budget, so naturally, the question “Is it worth it?” pops up now and then.

From my perspective, I can firmly answer this question with “yes and yes”.

The first “yes” goes to Switzerland, my home country. It’s our obligation to defend ourselves, so everybody has to contribute even if it’s strenuous and inconvenient.

The second “yes” goes to me as a person. I have met so many interesting people and learned so many new things in the military. I wouldn’t want to miss all those experiences.

And it’s the second “yes” that we’ll discuss in detail in this article.

The Setting

I’m using an example from a recent cyber operations course I attended. Besides many sessions delivered by the course instructors, each participant had to present their own topic to the entire course. The only guideline was that the topic would have to illuminate one aspect of cyber operations, no matter if the aspect was military or civilian.

Here is what a bunch of knowledgeable active reserve officers presented to each other.

Hack the Cosmos

Have you ever thought of hacking a satellite? What sounds like science fiction is more commonplace than we think — both in the context of the war in Ukraine, and also executed by cyber criminals. I’m sure you understand that I can’t write about the details of how to hack a satellite, but one course participant was proficient in such matters.

No Electricity, No Data. No Data, No Cyber

Should the ground forces care about cyber? Absolutely. If IT systems are unavailable, communications and intelligence will become impossible for the ground forces, too. But how do you protect a data center? Of course, you protect it by proper cybersecurity. But you will also need boots on the ground to protect the data centers. One of the course participants was experienced in leading a full-battalion exercise with the ground forces to protect data centers.

But if you don’t protect the power grid installations, your data center will stop running. And yes, there was also a participant who works for a grid operator and shared first-hand knowledge of the challenges of maintaining a stable grid.

AI vs. Machine Learning

Everybody is talking about AI. The military is using AI to improve the sensor-shooter loop. But what lies beneath the surface of AI, chatbots, and agents? Learning about the core principles of machine learning from somebody who spent his entire career on these concepts beats every article on AI in your favorite news outlet.

Software Defined Radios

When you think of a radio in a military context, you probably think of a big, heavy, black device with a few buttons and an antenna. But did you know that you can perform the signal processing not just through hardware, but also through software? This makes the radio much more flexible, and suddenly your big, heavy, black device can support a myriad of frequencies and protocols. And this flexibility also helps you stay undetected, which is a huge advantage on today’s battlefields. And yes, one of the participants works on the introduction project of the next-gen radios for the Swiss Armed Forces.

Technology Monitoring

Technology advances so fast that the Swiss Armed Forces have their own team of scientists monitoring technology trends. They go far beyond the technologies we use every day, for example, investigating quantum computing. Learning about technology trends from the person who leads that team of scientists and writes books on it is better than anything you read in the news.

Capture The Flag

When you think of military guys doing exercises, you probably think of shooting ranges in all their forms. But what does a shooting range for cyber soldiers look like? Cyber soldiers use capture the flag platforms to train stuff they’d better not try on production systems.

Emergency Radio

Even if the internet is omnipresent and radios are software-defined these days, how do you alert the population if everything else breaks down? In Switzerland, there is still an emergency radio service for the worst case. And yes, the person responsible for this was also a participant in the course and could inform us first-hand.

Conclusion

This article isn’t engineered; it represents the reality of what the active reserve system is capable of. Isn’t the competence of this group of individuals mind-blowing?

If you’re based in Switzerland, I encourage you to propagate the active reserve system. It brings the best of the country together.

If you’re based in a country that doesn’t use the active reserve system, you should talk to your politicians about the benefits of this system.