A group claiming to have sensitive documents relating to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York has been banned from Steemit, a blockchain-powered social media platform, following earlier bans from Twitter and Reddit.
CryptoGlobe reported last week that the group, who call themselves “TheDarkOverlord,” claim to be in possession of a number of documents relating to the terrorist attack, including secret and classified documents from both private companies and law firms, as well as various US government agencies – including the TSA, FAA, and FBI.
The group has already released some token documents (proving at least that they have really hacked something), and the latest release came only a few hours ago:
Hello, world. As you're well-aware, we designed a compensation plan that would allow for the public crowd-funding of our organisation in order to permit the public disclosure of our “9/11 Papers” in the interest of the public. Part of this plan was to create a tiered escalation plan that would result in multiple layers and milestones (which we're calling checkpoints) to ensure the powers at be are being properly bent over a barrel. We've said it before, and we'll say it again: we're financially motivated, and you (the public) has spoken to us in our language (internet money, specifically Bitcoin). Remember, continuing to fund our wallet will continue to keep us motivated to help break the truth to the world by open-sourcing what we're calling the “9/11 Papers”. To create a bit more buzz, we've decided to continue forward and release the decryption key for Layer 2.
Removed From Steemit
Steemit operates on top of the Steem blockchain, but the two are not synonymous. The Steem blockchain is like a backend for other sites to build on top of, similar to the IPFS distributed file system.
Although the TheDarkOverlord page is – as the reader can see – no longer present on the Steemit platform, the user’s content can still be seen on Steemd, a blockchain explorer for Steem (still with me?). Naturally, content cannot be deleted from the Steem blockchain. TheDarkOverlord have only been active on Steem for six days at time of writing, according to Steemd.
Many other apps besides Steemit operate on the Steem blockchain, such as DTube and Steem Monsters. Busy.org, a Steemit competitor operating on the Steem blockchain, is still displaying TheDarkOverlord’s content.
‘TheDarkOverlord’ – Leakers or Scammers?
TheDarkOverlord apparently breached the websites of the Hiscox Syndicates Ltd law firm – stealing 18,000 documents they claim relate to 9/11 – and demanded a bitcoin ransom in order to not release them.
The group also claim to have breached other law firms’ servers, but this has been denied. They have in the past released episodes of the Netflix series Orange is The New Black, in addition to hacking “a host of medical centres and private businesses across the United States,” according to Vice.
But they are also soliciting public donations – again in the form of bitcoin – as a sort of funding round, saying they will release as a reward ten gigabytes worth of documents related to 9/11 in segments. Each segment has a funding amount, which if achieved will see the group releasing encryption passwords for that segment.
They ultimately are asking for $2 million worth of donations for the entire collection. The group’s bitcoin address (192ZobzfZxAkacLGmg9oY4M9y8MVTPxh7U) currently contains 3.3 bitcoin, or about $13,200 at current prices. None of the documents released so far seem to contain any damning information, however.
