Even with the declining price of Bitcoin, the “9/11 papers hacker group” has received a significant sum of the flagship cryptocurrency. At current prices, their address has received more than $42,000. In case you missed it, the hackers claim to have acquired a treasure trove of damning documents. Documents related to the most notable foreign terrorist attack on US soil ever (those of September 11, 2001, for our younger and non-US readers) are only one part of the library.

9/11 Papers Hacker Group is Financially Motivated

The hackers first requested that insurance companies and others they claim are incriminated in the documents to pay them off. They have stated multiple times that they are out for money. For one thing, they’re not Americans. The 9/11 attacks do not have the same public interest to them as it might to an American group of hackers. For another, their goal is to enrich themselves. That the public will allegedly have a great deal more information about the 9/11 attacks, as a result, is seen as a side-effect.

Failing that, they leaned on the public to provide upwards of $1 million in Bitcoin for the full release. Peeling the layers like an onion, each new donation takes the public closer to whatever revelations may be in store.

Banned from social media sites in quick succession, they retreated to the blockchain-based Steem platform. Steemit.com, the most popular portal to the Steem blockchain, later banned them from the site.

Impossible to Fully Censor Content on Steem

Steem is not a censorable platform, however. An alternative version of Steemit called Busy.org has yet to ban their posts. In addition to Bitcoin donation, the relative popularity of their posts has earned them thousands of dollars worth of Steem.

A few weeks back, they released the second tier of documents.

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.

Donations have continued to flow in, sometimes in excess of 1 BTC. One donation was over 3 coins.

Donation amounts and cash-outs seem to have tapered off a bit. The last donation was in the amount of around $35. The last time they withdrew funds from the wallet was a couple of days ago for just over $300. The money went to a different address than the previous withdrawal, which went to 38xFTqA28c62Lpjcce8hpDGgbk1huwyiY1. They appear to be practicing half-decent financial hygiene by not re-using addresses outside of their stated donation address.

Censorship Breeds Interest

The response of mainstream media sites to the hackers’ publicity campaign seems to have fueled interest within the general public. Steemit.com never provided any reasoning for their banning of @thedarkoverlord. As we speculated in our article on the subject, there are some things within the Steemit terms of service that provide for such a ban:

The Steemit terms of service, like most social media sites, has a “god clause” which allows them to terminate users whenever they feel like it […] However, TheDarkOverlord’s posts may violate the terms of service clause regarding illegal activity […]

One particularly interesting aspect of this doxxing is that no one has yet come forward to fully debunk the claims made, or cited inaccuracies in the documents already released. As journalists, we have to ponder the possibility that they’re telling the truth.

Featured Image from AP Photo / Kelley Sane