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Sober Attack on 87th Anniversary of the Nazi Party 302

Posted by CowboyNeal from the back-with-a-vengeance dept.
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.""
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Sober Attack on 87th Anniversary of the Nazi Party More

Sober Attack on 87th Anniversary of the Nazi Party

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  • Godwined in the summary? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bsartist ( 550317 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:23AM (#14202218) Homepage
    Wow. Does this mean the thread is over before it's even started???
    • Nah, the summary didn't compare anyone with Hitler. Spreading false information like that is just like Hitler spreading his propaganda!

      There. Killed it.

    • No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)

      by paranode ( 671698 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:36AM (#14202351)
      I mean, lots of stuff happened on January 5th [wikipedia.org].

      They could be celebrating the 2000 Al Qaeda Summit! Or the first PC by Hewlett Packard! Maybe the birth of Marilyn Manson! Lots of possibilities... or maybe, just maybe... it has no meaning.

      • Re:No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @11:15AM (#14202672)
        Lots of possibilities... or maybe, just maybe... it has no meaning.

        Or maybe, just maybe, for a worm used to send nazi spam [atsnn.com] it has.

      • Re:No kidding (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        There's a 0.274% chance that any event in history happened on the 5th January. I guess the media doesn't get this, nor the fact that no-one celebrates the 87th anniversary of anything. If anything, it says more about the importance of this specific event to the reporter than anything else... my guess is it's just some coder's birthday or somesuch.
        • There's a 0.274% chance that any event in history happened on the 5th January

          Unless you take into consideration the fact that most people don't want to go outside when it's so freaking cold. Certainly, everything I did that was mentioned in history books was made during either spring or summer.

          P.S. Deep apologies to people in Australia for leaving the out of the picture.
    • The first thing it does is that it tries to take over a beer hall in Munich.
    • Come on, I heard that this new Sober variant was going to start by targeting .pl, then moving on the rest of Europe, and then go worldwide.

  • Well now what? (Score:2, Redundant)

    by GeckoX ( 259575 )
    The article summary itself brings up nazi's so by all rights this thread is dead before it even gets started.

    Could have at least thrown us a bone :)

    • Re:Well now what? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_April#Events [wikipedia.org]

      gee there must be a nazi conspiracy, just look at all the things that happened on ol' adolf's birthday....

      87 years eh... gee 8+7=15! 1x5=5!! 5=fifth letter=H(itler) tuooodoootooodooo!! {twilight zone tune}

      WTF!!! Is slashdot gonna open up a section for conspiracy theorists, witchhunts and numerology??

    • Could have at least thrown us a bone :)

      Well, we could start talking about the fate of Hitler's remains.

  • summaries (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:25AM (#14202234)
    These summaries are getting worse and worse.
    If you only have two sentences, leave it at that! You don't need to put them in the summary twice in the hopes nobody will notice.

  • that's silly (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:25AM (#14202242)
    Well, that's silly. Everyone knows that drunken attacks always go over better...

  • Why are these people so attracted to the Nazis? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by neo ( 4625 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:26AM (#14202254)
    I mean they had really cool looking uniforms but there's no connection between their philosophies and what these people seem to want. Look up Fascism [wikipedia.org] people! You virus writers won't actually like it. Honest!

    • I mean they had really cool looking uniforms but there's no connection between their philosophies and what these people seem to want. Look up Fascism people! You virus writers won't actually like it. Honest!

      Oh they wouldn't mind it so much, they'll just make sure that they are the ones doing it to other people. I can't imagine the Nazis would have liked certain of their theories applied to themselves.

      When your culture calls for tall blond Nordic types and your Leader is a short, brown haired guy who looks

    • They're just idiots looking for any excuse to cause trouble. Like those idiots with Che Guevara shirts who have no idea of what a paredón is.
    • I was trying to tell whether the virus is really linked to Nazis, or whether VeriSign just looked up Jan 5 in a "this day in history" calendar and made up the connection. There are only 365 days in a year, so they're fairly crowded with anniversaries.

      However, the article does say the virus sends "politically motivated" email. Anybody have more detail?

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • So it coincides with the 87th anniversary of the Nazi party. What does that have to do with anything?

    The linked article doesn't imply Sober has anything to do with Nazism. Was the Sober writer a Neo-Nazi? If so, it would've made much more sense to include this in the article or submitter's comments so the "Nazi anniversary" comment would mean something.

    You know what else happens on 5 January 2006? This guy [imdb.com] turns 75. Maybe the Sober writer also hates The Godfather! Who knows?

    • 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.
    • 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.
    • More events on that day (taken from http://www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi [scopesys.com]):

      1896 German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen's discovers x-rays
      1945 Pepe LePew debuts in Warner Bros cartoon "Odor-able Kitty"
      1956 Elvis Presley records "Heartbreak Hotel"
      1961 US breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba
      1973 Netherlands recognizes German Democratic Republic
      1982 Arkansas judge rules against obligatory teaching of creation

      Amongst many other events one might like to celebrate/commemorate.
    • So it coincides with the 87th anniversary of the Nazi party. What does that have to do with anything?

      Simple answer: The article is wrong. This wasn't the first Sober variant. Previous versions have been used to send out "Nazi spam" (actually, it was mainly xenophobia), so it's reasonable to assume that this isn't a coincidence.

      I don't understand why Verisign (the same company that offers bulletproof hosting for phishing sites, by the way) publicly documents how far their reverse engineering efforts have ad

  • I've never been partial to birthdays (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rodoke3 ( 681504 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:30AM (#14202284)
    I think a more appropriate date would be February 27 [wikipedia.org]. The date that led to the total 0wnage of Weimar Germany.

  • Great... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tiberius_Fel ( 770739 ) <`ten.nrobereripme' `ta' `lef'> on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:30AM (#14202285)
    Now there's going to be all sorts of virus / worm stuff related to important dates, like July 4 or the founding of the USSR, or whatever. I thought the whole date-triggered thing went out of fashion with the Michelangelo virus [wikipedia.org].

    • Re:Great... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:48AM (#14202452) Journal
      " I thought the whole date-triggered thing went out of fashion with the Michelangelo virus."

      I still have an old 486 with the Michelangelo virus embedded in the partition table. It still has this message written in wite-out on the casing:

      "WARNING: DO NOT USE ON MARCH 6"

      I might have to boot that sucker up this weekend and see what's on it.

    • Re:Great... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 )
      Now there's going to be all sorts of virus / worm stuff related to important dates, like July 4 or the founding of the USSR, or whatever. I thought the whole date-triggered thing went out of fashion with the Michelangelo virus.

      Your post rang bells in a dark recess of my mind labelled 'Elder Virus Lore', and I had to check with Google.

      January 5th is Joshi's birthday [symantec.com].

      Never mind the Nazi stuff, I think the Sober guys are just paying tribute to a viral classic :)

  • Are we sure that they writer of this worm was a neo-nazi? Because otherwise, it is probably a coincidence. I mean, if you look at the whole of human history, every day could probably be the anniversary of some terrible tragedy. We could end up saying things like "Oh no, this worm attack date coincides with the 193rd anniversary of the start of the war of 1812"

  • Je, personnellement... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stormwatch ( 703920 ) <(rodrigogirao) (at) (hotmail.com)> on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:32AM (#14202303) Homepage
    ...accueillir nos nouveaux suzerains nazis.
  • I have a book that lists all the "significant" events that happened on the same day as my birthday. Next virus that does something on May 4th, I'll have a something for the slashdot editors!

  • Dangit (Score:2, Funny)

    by KrancHammer ( 416371 )
    Guess this was a bad time to try out my new Little Frenchie Anti-Virus Software.

    • Re:Dangit (Score:2, Funny)

      by DaFallus ( 805248 )
      Did you also write a program called Maginot Firewall?

      • Re:Dangit (Score:3, Funny)

        by KrancHammer ( 416371 )
        Yeah, that and Little Frenchie is part of my Vichy Suite of software. It was pretty easy to write. If it detects a virus or intrusion, it just recommends reformatting. That's about it.
  • the 64th anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Habor.

    OMFG... conspiracy! There must be a connection somewhere.

    Just let me think of it, and I'll get back to you...

  • I understand that the worm will start on January 5th, but you'd think they could at least give you a reason why they picked January 5th!
    • I think it was because January 5th is the 87th anniversary of the Nazi party. Also, it was the Nazi party's 87th anniversary.

      In summary, January 5th, 2006 is the 87th anniversary of the Nazi party.

  • This story is null and void. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by IainMH ( 176964 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:36AM (#14202346)
    I call Godwin! [wikipedia.org]

  • You better be Sober (Score:3, Informative)

    by PromptZero ( 936799 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:36AM (#14202349)
    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.
  • Editors, please add the relevant info. Many of us do not use Windows and end up wasting time checking a virus' background every time a vague alert is posted on Slashdot.


    Again... please specify the OS!

    • Editors, please add the relevant info. Many of us do not use Windows and end up wasting time checking a virus' background every time a vague alert is posted on Slashdot.

      Any virus article that doesn't state which OS or application is acting as host is remiss. Windows != "Computers"

  • Widespread is an adjective! (Score:3, Informative)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:39AM (#14202378)
    "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.

  • 87th Anniversary Connection (Score:5, Informative)

    by corellon13 ( 922091 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @10:52AM (#14202484)
    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.
  • It's actually the 528th anniversary of the Battle of Nancy when Burgundy became part of France.

    Sober was written by Burgundish insurgents...

  • because people are lazy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by option8 ( 16509 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @11:01AM (#14202558) Homepage
    ...and can't check wikipedia themselves:

    1463 - Poet François Villon is banned from Paris.
    1477 - Battle of Nancy, Charles the Bold killed, Burgundy becomes part of France.
    1500 - Duke Ludovico Sforza conquers Milan.
    1527 - Martyrdom of Felix Manz, a Swiss Anabaptist.
    1554 - Great fire in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
    1675 - Battle of Colmar, French army beats Brandenburg.
    1757 - Louis XV of France survives the assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, the last person to be executed in France with the traditional and gruesome form of death penalty used for regicides.
    1759 - George Washington marries Martha Dandridge Custis.
    1781 - American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.
    1846 - The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom.
    1854 - The San Francisco steamer sinks, 300 dead.
    1895 - Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.
    1896 - An Austrian newspaper reports that Wilhelm Roentgen discovered a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
    1900 - Irish leader John Edward Redmond calls for a revolt against British rule.
    1909 - Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama.
    1912 - Prague Party Conference
    1914 - Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor.
    1918 - Free Committee for a German Workers' Peace founded, which would become the Nazi party.
    1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first female governor in the United States.
    1933 - Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.
    1940 - FM radio is demonstrated to the FCC for the first time.
    1944 - The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper.
    1945 - The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland.
    1948 - Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel (Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl).
    1956 - Elvis Presley records "Heartbreak Hotel."
    1957 - Major league baseballer Jackie Robinson retires.
    1961 - Television: Mr. Ed debuts.
    1964 - Pope Paul VI meets the Greek patriarch Athenagoras I in Jerusalem, the first meeting of Catholic and Orthodox Christianity leaders since 1439.
    1968 - Alexander Dub?ek comes to power, "Prague Spring" begins in Czechoslovakia.
    1970 - Soap opera: All My Children premieres.
    1972 - President of the United States Richard Nixon orders the development of a space shuttle program.
    1973 - Netherlands recognizes East Germany.
    1974 - An earthquake in Lima, Peru kills six, and damages 100s of houses.
    1975 - The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people.
    1976 - Cambodia is renamed Democratic Campuchea.
    1980 - Hewlett-Packard announces release of its first personal computer.
    1984 - Richard Stallman starts developing GNU.
    1987 - President of the United States Ronald Reagan undergoes prostate surgery causing worries about his health.
    1993 - The oil tanker MV Braer runs aground on the coast of the Shetland Islands spilling 84,700 tonnes of oil.
    1993 - Washington state executes Westley Allan Dodd by hanging (the first legal hanging in America since 1965).
    1996 - Hamas operative Yahya Ayyash is killed by an Israeli-planted booby-trapped cell phone.
    1997 - Withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya.
    2000 - The 1st day of the 2000 Al Qaeda Summit.
    2002 - Charles Bishop, a 15-year-old student pilot, crashes a light aircraft into a Tampa, Florida building, evoking fear of a copycat 9/11 terrorist attack.
    2006 - Expected activation of Sober worm
  • What is slashdot doing these days? which crackpot feeded that Nazi pointer into this title? Let me put it this way, if i ever see a nazi flag displayed here, slashdot will be going down, without a possible recovery.
  • WTF dude? This way ANY date can be ANY arbitrary birthday of whatever organization.
    The Nazis?
    The Commies
    The fascists
    The KKK
    ...

  • Sober making the rounds here for a while (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dema ( 103780 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @11:09AM (#14202637) Homepage
    For about the past month my mail server virus scanner has been getting a large number of hits from Sober, pretty much entirely from Hotmail. It's not an incredibly busy mail server, but the amount of Sober vs other viruses is hard to miss.

    Some stats from the past week:

    11/28 - 57 hits (2.7% of received emails)
    11/29 - 81 hits (3.6%)
    11/30 - 64 hits (2.9%)
    12/01 - 128 hits (2.2%)
    12/02 - 72 hits (3.6%)

    It seemed to take a break over Thanksgiving, there were zero hits between 11/23 and 11/28, which is the longest span since I first started seeing a lot of them.
  • Not only is it the anniversary of the Nazi party; it's also the date in 1984 that RMS started developing GNU.

    Now that's a sobering thought.

  • 5 January Conspiracy (Score:3, Funny)

    by Elektroschock ( 659467 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @11:23AM (#14202759)
    > 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

    5 january Nazi party? hmm. It is much worse.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono [wikipedia.org]
    Salvatore Phillip "Sonny" Bono (February 16, 1935 - January 5, 1998) was an American record producer, singer, actor and politician whose career spanned over three decades. ... He died of injuries from hitting a tree while skiing at the Heavenly Ski Resort near South Lake Tahoe, California, at the age of 62. (The accident came just days after Michael Kennedy died in a skiing accident on December 31, 1997, in Colorado.)

    "ITL is reporting that Sober is scheduled to attack on January 2006 - the data coincides with the death of Sonny Bono: "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 death of Sonny Bono who died of injuries from hitting a tree while skiing at the Heavenly Ski Resort near South Lake Tahoe.""

    But is even worse:

    Jan 5, 2002 - Charles Bishop, a 15-year-old student pilot, crashes a light aircraft into a Tampa, Florida building, evoking fear of a copycat 9/11 terrorist attack.

    Jan 5, 2000 - The 1st day of the 2000 Al Qaeda Summit.

    Jan 5, 1895 - Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.

    Jan 5, 1984 - Richard Stallman starts developing GNU.

    So, "ITNO is reporting that Sober is scheduled to attack on January 2006 - the data coincides with the start of developing GNU and the Dreyfus Affair: "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 death of Sonny Bono, the start of Richard Stallman's GNU project, Alfred Dreyfus' imprisonment and the 1st day of the 2000 Al Qaeda Summit."

    Now, in order to understand internet security you need to realize that everything is controlled by the GNU project made up of Free software supporters with help from the nazis. The conspiracy first started during 5th Jan in Devil's Island. They have been responsible for many events throughout history, including the death of Sonny Bono. Today, members of the conspiracy are everywhere. They can be identified by posting articles. They want to imprison Dreyfus and copycat 9/11 using email worm Sober. In order to prepare for this, we all must listen to the hidden news. Since the media is controlled by Richard Stallman we should get our information from slashdot.
  • Next thing we'll be hearing about how this Sober virus Hates Christmas because it says Happy Holidays.

    And it hates the soldiers, because it's not properly saying good things about the war in Iraq.

    And it was written by sodomites, because it attacks gay computers as well...

    Oh whatever. Maybe those conspiracy guys were right and putting flouride in our drinking water is making us stupid.
  • I've always suspected that the people who fight virii were actually quite enjoying themselves and happy to have the business. This is pretty clear in the fact that they always give virii cool sounding names.

    Quit doing that! It just glorifies the writers of these things. It's pretty cool sounding to be the guy that wrote Doom or Sasser or Sober. But maybe there'd be a small drop in virus writing if we named them things like 2005 Virus #345. You say that's hard to remember and they will all sound the same?

  • "The next planned widespread of 2005's most prolific e-mail worm, Sober...."

    This is not an email virus. This is a Microsoft Windows virus. Actually, it's a Microsoft Outlook virus, but nowadays Microsoft ties everything together so tightly that it doesn't matter.

    Anyone system not using any Microsoft software, such as systems running Linux and/or *BSD, is completely immune to this (and all the others).

    I regularly view all these emails (I use Linux) for no good reason, other than for the fact that I can.

  • This worm was used for Neo Nazi spam. (Score:4, Informative)

    by sideshow ( 99249 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @12:48PM (#14203575)
    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.

  • Far more interesting to see the other things associated with the date. Wikipedia has a list [wikipedia.org]

    Who knows, maybe it is because its the 11th day of Christmas, and the author wants to bring attention to those 11 pipers piping? Or maybe they wanted everyone to harken back to the day in 1961 when the show Mr. Ed began? Isn't this jumping to a conclusion that isn't warranted by the available facts?

    Oh wait, this is /., nevermind

  • List of events on 5th January (Score:3, Funny)

    by larien ( 5608 ) on Wednesday December 07, 2005 @01:40PM (#14204018) Homepage Journal
    From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].

    Who cares about the Nazi party? It's gonna strike 50 years to the day Elvis released Heartbreak Hotel!

  • Seeing as how this story posted up on December 7.

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