Sober Attack on 87th Anniversary of the Nazi Party

Jack writes "ITO is reporting that Sober is scheduled to attack on January 2006 - the data coincides with the 87th anniversary of the Nazi party: "The next planned widespread of 2005's most prolific e-mail worm, Sober, is scheduled to start on January 5, 2006 based on commands hard-coded within the worm. The attack date coincides with the 87th anniversary of the Nazi party.""

Re:Randomness

[tehshen]

It's also the day that Buddy Holly released his last album. What the hell does any of this have to do with anything. Sheesh.

If you search before you post, you'll know that Sober-G was used to send out Neo-Nazi spam [atsnn.com]. Buddy Holly was not.

You better be Sober

[PromptZero]

The grave insecurity of the day is the Sober worm which is currently pushing nearly 25% of all email traffic at the moment. Unlike previous worms, Sober can disable the Windows Firewall and Symantec Antivirus. Interestingly, patched machines are not vulnerable to the exploits used by this worm.

Widespread is an adjective!

[digitaldc]

"The next planned widespread of 2005's most prolific e-mail worm, Sober, is scheduled to start on January 5, 2006 based on commands hard-coded within the worm."

See: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/widespread [m-w.com]
Main Entry: widespread
Pronunciation: 'wId-'spred
Function: adjective
1 : widely diffused or prevalent - ex: "widespread public interest"
2 : widely extended or spread out - ex: "low, widespread hood and fenders"br>

The Grammar Nazis never miss a chance at spoiling an event.

Re:Anniversary of Nazi Party... So what?

[68kmac]

There have been previous incidents where machines that were infected by Sober variants (Sober.G and Sober.Q, it seems) have later begun churning out neonazi spam.

So either the Sober author is indeed a neonazi or the neonazis rented the Sober-infected botnets.

Re:Anniversary of Nazi Party... So what?

[trcooper]

Well, your thoughts are valid, the /. post and the linked article explain nothing about the Sober worm...

If you go here [infoworld.com] you will find that the Sober worm directs people to neo-nazi websites, and sends emails with subjects like "Dresden Bombing Is To Be Regretted Enormously" and "60 Years of Freedom: Who's Celebrating?"

Given just what /. had, I'd be more inclined to think that it coincided with Marilyn Manson's birthday [wikipedia.org]. But the virus/worm is actually well known for spreading neo-nazi propaganda.

87th Anniversary Connection

[corellon13]

For all of you posting all the other events that happend on Jan. 5th, please RTFA: "The company says the attack could have a significant damaging effect on internet traffic, as the worm designed to send politically motivated spam from tens of millions of e-mail addresses. The next phase of the multi-phased Sober worm has been discovered by iDefense using reverse-engineering techniques in the most recent version of the worm." The article coins another brilliant 'ism: hacktivism before going on to the above article. The connection to the Nazi anniversary was not just pulled out of thin air. So, please close the wikopedia page and put up your Farmer's Almanac and step away from the keyboard. Thank you.

Re:Coincides has the same root as Coincidence

[httptech]

Given his use of the worm to spread neo-nazi-type propaganda in the past, it's likely that he is indeed a neo-nazi or sympathetic to the cause. However, one thing I've determined from my analysis of the worm is that the download date isn't scheduled to occur until Friday, January 6. The logic in the code is actually "check if date > Jan 5", not "check if date == Jan 5". So then there might not even be a correlation OR a coincidence.

-Joe

Joe Stewart, GCIH
Senior Security Researcher
LURHQ http://www.lurhq.com/ [lurhq.com]

Re:Coincides has the same root as Coincidence

[httptech]

Actually, to further the theory of coinciding dates, now that I look at my notes, the logic in the worm is more specifically "start spreading after 68 days after October 29". October 29 is the birth date of Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda.

-Joe

Joe Stewart, GCIH
Senior Security Researcher
LURHQ http://www.lurhq.com/ [lurhq.com]

Re:Why are these people so attracted to the Nazis?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, kristallnacht [jewishvirtuallibrary.org] was in 1933. The Nazis were already very controversial by the time of the 1936 olympic games. So the statement "in 1938 that the Nazi party and Hitler were fairly new, and were not yet seen as that bad" is bollocks.

kids today...

[imsabbel]

one hint: READ the corresponding article (the man of the year one).
Its available online.
Just read it, and see why the GP is a load of crap.

Re:Why are these people so attracted to the Nazis?

[Lars T.]

Well,it may have been news for someone from the American backwoods, but most anybody else must have noticed that Hitler tried a coup d'etat in 1923, and was thrown in jail for some time. After he took power in 1933, he soon outlawed all other parties, and threw tens of thousands of people opposing him into Concentration Camps. Then he began a massive rearmament against the terms of the Versaille peace treaty and seriously cut into the rights of Jews. All before 1938.

This worm was used for Neo Nazi spam.

[sideshow]

That's why it's said that January 5th is the 87th aniversary of the NAZIs. This worm already sent out millions of Nazi spam emails so it's probable that the worm doesn't give a fuck about Marlyn Manson's birthday.

Examples

[Anonymous Coward]

Chile, Cuba, Djibouti, Jordan, Liberia, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, anfd that just considers national flags, not state and regional flags within countries

Re:do the math...

[MaggieL]

Among neo-Nazis, "88" is a codeword for "Heil Hitler"

Among radio amateurs, "88" is a code word for "love and kisses". In communications, context is everything.

Re:Godwined in the summary?

[uberdave]

Godwin's Law [jargon.net] is a Usenet term that states that the longer an online discussion/debate goes, the greater the probability that someone will make a comparison to Nazis, Hitler, etc. Once someone does make that comparison the thread usually breaks down into name calling and no further intelligent debate occurs. So, once Hitler/Nazis are mentioned, the thread is effectively over. Since this particular article starts with a Nazi reference, is the discussion over before it begins? More info here [wikipedia.org].

Re:Why are these people so attracted to the Nazis?

[huge colin]

You neglected to mention that the Nazi party also dragged a country out of economic ruin and to a world superpower. In the 1930s, German hyperinflation was so bad that 100-billion-Mark notes were being printed. Many people in the country at the time welcomed the change.