THE DARK OVERLORD – Tom's Blog

The Dark Overlord hacker group has released decryption keys for a second batch of 9/11 documents, totalling over 7,500 files. Additional document leaks containing “more secrets” and “more truth” have been promised, for a price.

The first batch of the supposed 18,000 documents was made available by the hackers at the weekend, along with a decryption key for ‘layer 1’ of the dump. The documents are believed to have been stolen from insurance companies, law firms and government agencies, and the hackers originally demanded an unspecified bitcoin ransom to keep them unreleased.

After apparently failing to secure the ransom, the group then took bitcoin donations from the public, releasing ‘layer 1’ after collecting $12,000 – but then also releasing ‘layer 2’ on Wednesday despite not meeting its funding target.

So far, no ‘smoking gun’ has emerged detailing conspiracy or government involvement in the terrorist attacks.

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Instead, the documents build up a picture of insurance litigators brainstorming to see who they could sue for damages in the wake of the attacks. In emails, the lawyers discuss targeting the airlines, airplane manufacturers, the Federal Aviation Authority, the terrorists themselves, and foreign entities.

Talking strategy, the lawyers mull taking action against Boeing for not fitting the 757 and 767 aircraft used in the attacks with automatic transponders, which could have alerted authorities sooner that something was amiss, a case that the lawyers admit in the documents was flimsy. The lawyers also discuss dropping a case against the FAA, for fear of rankling the government.

Along the way, the litigators discuss whether then-President George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the attacks, or whether the Saudi Royal family was responsible, but this discussion is speculative and no damning new information is revealed.

While the encryption key for the first batch of documents has been scrubbed from Reddit, Pastebin and Twitter, it remained available for several days on Steemit. Dark Overlord’s account was banned from the platform on Wednesday, however, but the documents can be accessed on Busy.org, a website that runs on the same blockchain as Steemit.

The hacker group has promised three more layers of documents to come, if its price is met. The latest leak was accompanied with the message: “Continue to keep the bitcoins flowing, and we’ll continue to keep the truth flowing.” The hackers are asking for $2 million in bitcoin for the public release of its “megaleak,” which it has dubbed “the 9/11 Papers.”

Emerging in 2016, Dark Overlord has been responsible for numerous hacking and extortion schemes. The group infamously leaked an entire season of Netflix’s Orange is the New Black last year when its ransom was not met. When not leaking government and corporate documents, the group makes a living selling credit card information and medical records.

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The group may have a hard time paying its members if the latest ransom demands are not met, however. Cyberscoop reported on Tuesday that the group was posting recruitment ads on dark web forums in November, looking to hire four skilled cybercriminals.

New employees were reportedly promised 50,000 pounds ($63,500) monthly, bumped up to 70,000 pounds ($89,000) after two years’ service.

The Dark Overlord hacker group has released decryption keys for 650 documents it says are related to 9/11. Unless a ransom is paid, it threatened with more leaks that will have devastating consequences for the US ‘deep state’.

The document dump is just a fraction of the 18,000 secret documents related to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks believed to have been stolen from insurers, law firms, and government agencies.

Hacker group threatens to leak 9/11 ‘truth’ unless paid in bitcoin

The Dark Overlord initially threatened to release the 10GB of data unless the hacked firms paid an unspecified bitcoin ransom. However, on Wednesday, the group announced a “tiered compensation plan” in which the public could make bitcoin payments to unlock the troves of documents.

A day later, the Dark Overlord said that it had received more than $12,000 in bitcoin – enough to unlock “layer 1” and several “checkpoints,” comprised of 650 documents in total.

There are four more layers that remain encrypted and, according to the group, “each layer contains more secrets, more damaging materials… and generally just more truth.”

The hackers are asking for $2 million in bitcoin for the public release of its “megaleak,” which it has dubbed “the 9/11 Papers.”

The group has also offered to sell the documents to terrorist groups, foreign governments, and media outlets. When RT approached the hackers for comment, they proposed providing the channel exclusive access to the potentially explosive papers – for a price, of course.

“They were willing to sell those documents to me. So it’s all about money for them,” RT America correspondent Michelle Greenstein said.

By design, the “layer 1” documents – if authentic – do not appear to contain any explosive revelations. The publications focus mostly on testimonies from airport security and details concerning insurance pay-outs to parties affected by the 9/11 attacks. However, the data dump suggests that the group is not bluffing.

“Let this serve as more definitive proof that what we’re saying is true, and that we’re doing exactly as we promised you. Continue to keep the bitcoins flowing, and we’ll continue to keep the truth flowing,” they wrote in a message that included the decryption keys.

The documents – which were immediately scrubbed from Reddit, Pastebin and Twitter – are available for download on Steemit at the time of writing.

Shortly after releasing the decryption keys, the group posted an ultimatum addressed to “the nation-state of the United States of America and the greater deep-state.”

“To all the other parties involved (airlines, litigation firms, investigation firms, FBI, TSA, FAA, banks, security companies and more), we’re going to burn you down unless you begin to ‘play ball,'” the message reads.

Apparently angered by the fact that the ransom has not yet been met, the message warned: “We’re peeling these layers back like an onion. No one can save you except for us. Pay the f*** up.”

Although the group insists that it is financially motivated and not interested in “hacktivism,” they nonetheless expressed hope that continued crowd-funding would secure the full release of the 18,000 documents.

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“We can’t allow the mainstream media to silence the truth any longer. We must ensure their propaganda is crushed by the truths we’re dealing today,” the hackers wrote after providing the decryption keys for “layer 1.”

The Dark Overlord claim to have hacked documents from not only major global insurers like Lloyds of London and Hiscox, but also Silverstein Properties, which owned the World Trade Center complex, and various government agencies.

The “megaleak“ purportedly includes secret documents that were meant to be destroyed but were instead retained by legal firms, allegedly revealing “the truth about one of the most recognizable incidents in recent history.”

The group emerged in 2016 and has been responsible for numerous extortion schemes involving hacked data. The Dark Overlord infamously leaked an entire season of Netflix’s Orange is the New Black last year after a ransom was not met.

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