Postcard virus hoax 2011

When the keys or the reset button are pressed, the virus destroys Sector Zero, thus permanently destroying the hard disk. Yesterday in just a few hours this virus caused panic in New York, according to news broadcast by CNN. This alert was received by an employee of Microsoft itself. Even if you know the sender. This virus simply writes zeros on the hard drive, where the vital information for the operation of the PC is kept. In this study, we examined relevant items from a nationally representative survey which was conducted from October 30, to December 14, in Germany as part of the Viral Communication project viralcomm.

Participants were recruited by sending postcard invitations to a random selection of Addresses were stratified by population across federal states in Germany Destatis, Following data collection, survey data was cleansed by applying a range of inclusion criteria. These criteria were strictly required as weighting was applied next, using the latest available German census Zensus , This meant that these key sociodemographic questions were asked exactly as they were in the census, and that the sample was then weighted based on the corresponding sociodemographic distributions from the latest German census so as to represent the German population as accurately as possible.

All questions used for weighting had therefore been exactly aligned with their census counterparts in the survey design stage. The weighted dataset allows for inferences beyond the sample. In total, 1, survey entries were registered. Based on the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire CMQ by Bruder and colleagues , a four-item scale was developed to assess general conspiracy mindedness. Respondents were able to rate all items on the aforementioned agreement scale. A conspiracy mindedness score was calculated for each participant by taking the average of all answered conspiracy items listed above.

To measure trust in key institutional sources of information on the pandemic i. To ascertain predictors of belief in the vaccination conspiracy, correlation analyses and independence tests were performed with socio-demographic variables, trust in different COVID information sources, and political orientation as independent variables.

Kruskall-Wallis and corresponding post-hoc tests with Bonferroni correction were used for nominal independent variables. Compound variables for attitudes towards science, trust in scientific actors and conspiracy-mindedness were computed by taking the average of the relevant and responded-to items. Overall, geographical location within Germany explained However, age groups as a whole explained just 2.

Also, trust in key scientific and official information sources was negatively correlated with this conspiracy belief. The correlation between the frequency in accessing a social media or messaging platform and the agreement with the vaccine conspiracy varied greatly by platform.

Additional correlations with belief in other conspiracy beliefs further support the interconnectedness of various conspiracy beliefs: A strong correlation with The less people in Germany believed the vaccination conspiracy, the more likely they were to express willingness to take the novel coronavirus vaccine.

However, the effect size here was moderate, with 8. This study has analyzed survey results on a vaccination-related conspiracy belief, its predictors and links to willingness to get vaccinated. People from the German capital of Berlin were less likely to agree with the vaccination conspiracy than people from another part of Germany i. Demographic variables do not seem to explain these differences since Berlin has a younger and more migrant population than Brandenburg, where both factors tend to enhance agreement with the vaccination conspiracy Statistik Berlin Brandenburg, These state differences may instead be related to political party affiliation patterns e.

Additionally, measures in the more densely populated city-state Berlin are more visible and partly stricter than the ones in Brandenburg, e. Thus, preliminarily, more or less strict policies could be a factor in regional differences.

Of course, other factors related to state differences such as local press need to be taken into account - a potential focus of future studies. Political orientation on a conventional left-right spectrum only negligibly correlated with the vaccine-related conspiracy belief.

These findings are consistent with results from Sutton and Douglas suggesting that conspiracy beliefs are associated with ideological polarization rather than liberalism or conservatism. However, a larger proportion of variance can be explained by the level of secondary education attained.

This may help explain why marginalized groups often subscribe to conspiracies at the highest frequency. The difference between people with a migrant background and those without one could also be explained by exposure to misinformation: Although there was a general correlation between Twitter usage and vaccination conspiracy belief, it was only statistically significant for people with a migrant background.

Future studies could more deeply investigate information behavior and the sources accessed among both groups as potential causes for this effect. Trust in all types of information sources i. This coheres with literature on the relation between conspiracy belief and distrust in governments Sutton and Douglas, as well as specific institutions and professions Freeman et al.

The direction of causality, however, remains unclear. This study found, in line with previous research, a high correlation between belief in the vaccination conspiracy and general conspiracy-mindedness, as well as moderate to strong correlations with other specific conspiracy beliefs.

It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it. Shut down your computer immediately.

This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept. Threat Level:. Learn more. All rights reserved. Products Products for Business For Business.

Examples: [Collected via e-mail, November ]. You should be alert during the next few days. This is the reason you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it. Shut down your computer immediately. This is the worst virus announced by CNN.