A member of a notorious German hacking group has been voted on to the board of the management body of the internet, with plans to improve the security of the net.

Andy Mueller-Maguhn, spokesman of ethical hacker group Chaos Computing Club, was elected as European director of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann). He received 5948 votes - more than twice the amount polled by any of the other six candidates.

The election, which took place between 1 October and 10 October, was decided by an online ballot of the 76,000 Icann members who have registered to vote.

In his election manifesto, Mueller-Maguhn said that he stood for the free flow of information and privacy. As well as being interested in technical standards, he is also interested in the risks of technology and said he wants to improve the security of the internet.

Mueller-Maguhn will now take his seat alongside internet heavyweights such as Esther Dyson and executives from IT suppliers on the board of Icann.

The internet management body is involved in the overall technical management of the net, including functions such as the definition and supervision of the domain name system, and the unique assignment of IP addresses and protocol parameters, such as port numbers.

Neil Barrett, technical director at security consultant Information Risk Management, said the Chaos Club is well known as one of the first organisations to expose flaws in software used within online banking. He added that members of the group were known as ethical hackers.

In February 1997, members of the Chaos Club in Hamburg found a way to siphon money from millions of bank accounts simply by releasing rogue software on to the internet. But instead of sending the code out to work, the hackers chose to show it off live on German television.

The Chaos Club software was built using Microsoft's ActiveX internet technology, and the demonstration forced the software giant to warn: "There is no way to guarantee safety on the internet."