German parliament. Photo: Fabrizio Bensch/REUTERS
When Russia released private information and emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), it was to help a far-right populist politician win the presidential election in the United States. The Russians spared the Republicans. Their favored candidate won thanks to the outdated electoral college, and he has been parroting Russian propaganda ever since.
Whoever hacked these politicians, they were careful to leave dangerous far-right politicians safe. They also attacked celebrities, perhaps to further obfuscate their intentions. When hackers spare a specific group, it’s for a strategic purpose. Whether this was orchestrated by Russia, the lone hacker who has confessed, or other trolls, they are—without a doubt—right-wing sympathizers looking to disrupt German democracy. They’re using the same plan Russia used to disrupt the U.S. election.
Can you blame them? It worked before.
The Hacked
“This is a serious attack on democracy in our country.”
– Dietmar Bartsch, leader of the Left Party
This hack seemed erratic. It was either designed to look unplanned or the hacker was just grabbing information on as many people as he could. Most of the victims were German politicians, specifically liberal, moderates, and moderate conservatives, including Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The hacker or hackers specifically allowed far-right politicians to go untouched. That makes the motive obvious, to find information the hacker could use to either discredit more level-minded politicians or reduce their chances of winning an election. However, some celebrities were in the mix as well. These could have been sprinkled in intentionally, or a bored hacker could have chosen to steal their account information as well.
Due to the nature of the accounts accessed, it seems each person was targeted individually. The hack comes from a variety of cloud services and other online services that are vulnerable to phishing attacks. These are fake emails or messages that try to trick the user into entering their login information. Once the hacker has that, they quickly log on and download as much information as they can. These are simple hacks that take almost no skill to execute but can have devastating effects. The U.S. election may have been crippled by a combination of fake news and phishing “hacks.”
And the Hacker or Hackers
In 2017, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, English: Alternative for Germany) party became the first far-right party since the Nazi party to win seats in Germany’s national legislature. The party spouts familiar far-right ideals. It’s a nationalist party, believing in restoring Germany’s pride. It’s an anti-immigrant party and is against LGBTQ and women’s rights. AfD is also in favor of forced military service, and is skeptical of climate change. These stances should be familiar to historians and Americans alike. They parrot the far-right views spreading through Europe and the United States, and Germany’s other infamous far-right party. In fact, they’ve aligned themselves with extremist groups.
The hacker ignored AfD. He only attacked, or, at least, he only released the information from their political opponents. It’s still possible that hackers were able to access their emails and other private information, but have chosen to hold on to it for leverage. This is a key tactic to control a government. Destroy someone’s political opponents, get them in power, and then threaten to do the same to them. It’s how puppet governments are installed.
20-Year-Old Hacker Confesses
German police report that a 20-year-old man has confessed to hacking these politicians. As suspected, the hack took place over a year, with various hacks occurring at different times and with a variety of accounts. The police have not shared his name, but have confirmed his motive. The hacker was “dissatisfied with public statements made by politicians.” His choice to not attack far-right and nationalist politicians was due to his own political leanings.
We don’t yet know whether or not this was an individual endeavor, if he was part of a group incursion, if he’s confessing as part of a cover-up for a larger organization, or if this was just one young man sending phishing emails. Even if this was just an individual effort, as it appears to be, he was motivated by the success of Russia’s campaign against the U.S. and its support of far-right candidates in France that, ultimately due to their election system that better protects against demagogues and populists, failed.
Motivation
The hackers had a clear goal. They weren’t trying to extort money, embarrass celebrities, or protest elections. They were directly tampering with electoral processes. The goal of this hack was to dump as much data on AfD’s political opponents as they could. The hope is that someone else will comb through the data, or they can find points of possible controversy after the leak.
In the U.S., dissemination of the hacked information was more precise, to ensure the media discussed the leaked emails and documents at length. Still, motive is clear. This was an attempt to disrupt German democracy to favor an extremist-aligned far-right political party. If it works, democracy as we know it will take another serious blow. One the world may not recover from for many years.
Sources:
- Kevin Collier, BuzzFeed News Update
- Geir Moulson, The Washington Post
- Davey Winder, Forbes