Political Motivations
In May 2005, the variant Sober.Q appeared. Whereas previous variants appeared to be motivated by commercial gain or by malicious intent, this was the first to seem politically motivated.
Other variants (such as Sober.B) sent e-mails with subject headers also indicated political intent, but these seemed to be designed to arouse the victim's interest, so that he or she would open the e-mail's attachment. Sober.Q does not send e-mails with attachments, instead preferring links to web sites with no viruses.
Sober.Q spread on computers to send messages of support for far-right groups in Germany pending the local elections in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Most appeared to be in support of, or directly from the German political party NPD (Nationalist Party of Germany) with links to their website, as well as other forum entries. It is, however, unknown whether this virus originated from the NPD themselves, supporters of the party, a hacker group trying to place the blame on the party or a group attempting to discredit the party.
Similar to the above incident, the Sober virus was used again in 2005 by an unidentified German group to send out a widespread distribution of links to various political articles and commentaries. The effort seemed to be linked to German elections around the same time period.
Read more about this topic: Sober (worm)
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or motivations:
“What drivel it all is!... A string of words called religion. Another string of words called philosophy. Half a dozen other strings called political ideals. And all the words either ambiguous or meaningless. And people getting so excited about them they’ll murder their neighbours for using a word they don’t happen to like. A word that probably doesn’t mean as much as a good belch. Just a noise without even the excuse of gas on the stomach.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The wider the range of possibilities we offer children, the more intense will be their motivations and the richer their experiences. We must widen the range of topics and goals, the types of situations we offer and their degree of structure, the kinds and combinations of resources and materials, and the possible interactions with things, peers, and adults.”
—Loris Malaguzzi (1920–1994)