Hackers Threaten To Dump Insurance Files Related To 9/11 Attacks (vice.com) 134
An anonymous reader shares a report: On Monday, New Year's Eve, a hacker group announced it had breached a law firm handling cases related to the September 11 attacks, and threatened to publicly release a large cache of related internal files unless their ransom demands were met. The news is the latest public extortion attempt from the group known as The Dark Overlord, which has previously targeted a production studio working for Netflix, as well as a host of medical centres and private businesses across the United States. The announcement also signals a slight evolution in The Dark Overlord's strategy, which has expanded on leveraging the media to exert pressure on victims, to now distributing its threats and stolen data in a wider fashion.
In its announcement published on Pastebin, The Dark Overlord points to several different insurers and legal firms, claiming specifically that it hacked Hiscox Syndicates Ltd, Lloyds of London, and Silverstein Properties. "Hiscox Syndicates Ltd and Lloyds of London are some of the biggest insurers on the planet insuring everything from the smallest policies to some of the largest policies on the planet, and who even insured structures such as the World Trade Centers," the announcement reads.
In its announcement published on Pastebin, The Dark Overlord points to several different insurers and legal firms, claiming specifically that it hacked Hiscox Syndicates Ltd, Lloyds of London, and Silverstein Properties. "Hiscox Syndicates Ltd and Lloyds of London are some of the biggest insurers on the planet insuring everything from the smallest policies to some of the largest policies on the planet, and who even insured structures such as the World Trade Centers," the announcement reads.
hmmm (Score:2)
I'm not sure how valuable 18-year old files are.
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You're not very imaginative. But why prejudge them either way, unless you have an agenda to push beyond what the documents say anyway? That's like deciding not to investigate Saudi Arabia even with the smoking guns.
Re:hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, follow the money. We should have embargoed the Saudi scum and blockaded their ports in the weeks after 9/11, not spend trillions on endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Send a message that financing terrorism and mass murder is not an acceptable thing to do.
But no, the Bush family was too corrupt and enmeshed in oil interests to do the right thing.
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Yes, inflation was so low and the economy was doing so well and we so quickly ended the Iranian hostage crisis under his leadership. Not.
Carter was probably the most principled and empathetic US President of my lifetime and I respect him greatly as a person, but he was a horrible President. He was an "outsider" and very ineffective in the job.
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Carter is an absolutely stellar example of someone who meant well and was a decent person, but couldn't do the job well. Sometimes you gotta be a jerk, and he wasn't.
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Obama? Was probably too busy killing Osama Bin Laden for the Republican weaklings who couldn't get it done, saving the economy from Republican discretionary spending on wars and corporate tax cuts, and not lusting after his own daughters.
Trump truly is a traitor, but it's the weird way he wants to fuck his daughter that will probably be remembered even more than his whining from Federal Prison.
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And Trump's had 3 years to get it done. So.... ?
I think it's fair to say the sitting president primarily takes responsibility for the policy thereafter.
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Re: hmmm (Score:1)
and sworn at continuously since then
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Except, now, we (the US) are a net exporter of oil. Sure, it's a global market, but if prices climb we net benefit. This situation is not likely to change in the future as we move to more fuel efficient vehicles and electric vehicles. The only way for the Saudis to screw us is dump oil onto the market (their production costs are among the lowest in the world) to drive the price down below where US oilfields can make money -- but within months of them again restricting supply, the mothballed rigs in the US w
Re: hmmm (Score:2)
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Yeah, and about those hacks, I wonder when we are going to start seeing those hackers shot in the balls, knees and elbows, just to send a message that not everything should be hacked. I'm really surprised it hasn't happened yet.
I see you're not a fan of the Eighth Amendment. You think that's an appropriate punishment for hacking? That's some next-level authoritarian dictator shit. Thank god you're not in charge.
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While not going after the Saudis may have been the morally bankrupt choice, it was the economically cheaper choice even if it did involve spending trillions on wars. Any President who implemented a contrary policy would have
Re:hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
The Arab Oil Embargo was a good thing -- it allowed more efficient Japanese cars to temporarily slaughter the antiquated beasts the US automakers were vomiting onto the roads. It's a shame that oil didn't STAY expensive after the early 80s. We'd probably be driving more electric cars, have more of our railroad network electrified, and we'd have much smaller cars (like in Europe) -- not as many idiots driving huge SUVs and pickups in the suburbs.
Personally, I'd WELCOME another oil embargo or an Iran-Iraq-Saudi war if it puts worldwide oil prices in their rightful place: above $250/bbl.
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A Democrat President would have done the same thing.
Stop reading partisan politics into everything for God's sake. He just said Bush was corrupt. He didn't say all Rs are corrupt. If you want to talk about Carter's corruption, go start a thread where that's relevant. It's not an excuse for other corrupt presidents.
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Carter had a globalist cabal 'advising' him, same as every president since him--with one exception.
That's the thing. Great leaders aren't hyper-intelligent individuals that know all the answers. Why? Because that describes no one. Nobody is an expert in all the fields necessary to govern a large nation.
Great leaders are people that are smart enough to surround themselves with experts to form coordinated informed actions. "That person" continues to alienate and fire all of their experts and go it alone. That should scare you.
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The simple SANE responsible action that meets the governments basic mandate to "provide for the common defense" to shutdown immigration from that part of the world.
The state department could grant the handfuls of special case visa to permit the required well known persons limited access to the USA to facilitate the oil trade and the movement of other goods. No VISA for anyone else from the middle east. As far as mid easterners go with foreign passwords they better have a long establish residency in their
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Yep, follow the money. We should have embargoed the Saudi scum and blockaded their ports in the weeks after 9/11, not spend trillions on endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Send a message that financing terrorism and mass murder is not an acceptable thing to do.
Unless we do it. Afghanistan in the '80s, Cuba, Brazil, Nicaragua, Pinochet, Mubarak ...
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Then we should be glad you aren't in charge.
There have been lots of leaders in history with that idea. It never works out.
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I'm not prejudging them, I'm saying that in my expert opinion it is far more likely than not that these documents will be boring and pointless, and if such is the case the law firm should not pay any ransom.
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it is far more likely than not that these documents will be boring and pointless, and if such is the case the law firm should not pay any ransom
Certainly not an expert on the matter, but how many lawyers would be lined up to sue the shit out these three firms for failing to protect sensitive information? I give it 3 days for a class action lawsuit to be announced, no matter how boring the contents of the files are.
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Meh, we're required to exercise due care with documents but I don't think they can be liable for acts like this, unless they were really negligent in securing them. We're not expected to be infallible, just not too stupid or careless.
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Actually it was 6 weeks before 9/11. He had breakfast at Windows of the World at WTC every morning except on 9/11. He and is son and daughter - who both worked at the WTC - were all suspiciously absent that day.
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Almost but not really: https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com]
Moreover, upon signing that lease, Silverstein was obligated to insure the World Trade Center. There was nothing strange, suspicious, or “fortuitous,” therefore, about his purchasing an all-risk insurance policy — which at that time would have automatically included terrorism coverage — two months before 9/11, because that’s when he became contractually responsible for doing so. Ultimately, Silverstein wasn’t even solely responsible for the total dollar amount of that coverage ($3.55 billion) because that was the minimum demanded by his lenders, according to a 2002 report in The American Lawyer.
And he got back $4.55 billion when the rebuilding cost was estimated to be $9 billion so he lost a ton of money here, so no there where no "funny how a jew profited from terrorist attacks" at all.
Re: hmmm (Score:2)
Link to a single mistake they ever made in their thousands of documents.
Or admit being brainwashed.
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The sarcasm is strong with this one.
Re: Do we even care? (Score:2)
Your "Gen Z" is going to be paying for the 9/11 (PNAC) wars for the rest of their lives given the current trajectory. They might just care about that if the hackers release history and economics primers as well.
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in 9 months time you can legally watch post 9/11 porn stars
I love this new definition of "eighteen years".
pfft 17 year old data (Score:2)
I mean at this point there have been so many other major breaches Its hard to imagine to much of real interesting being there.
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Also, the outcome of the attempt to blackmail Netflix with release of part of a season of Orange is the new black was hilarious.
This person is such a clown. All ransom notes from this individual should be read in lisping-tending-toward-daffy-duck pocket protector nerd voice for maximum hilarity.
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Who has to gain? The public -- people affected by 9/11 should have access to as much air-quality and hazmat data as possible to facilitate lawsuits against relevant parties. Who has to lose? The state and US governments who both understated health risks in the weeks after 9/11.
Leak away, people, you're doing the good people of New York a solid.
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Come one there was no coordinated attempt to cover up the health risks. If the understated the risks it was to avoid a panic. The reality is at the end of the day state and federal medicare is going to be on the hook of those health effects either way. So private insurers might get stuck with some of the bill in the mean time but for the most part these things will present as increased rates of later life illnesses like COPD and various cancers among those exposed.
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Good... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Asbestos was an issue with the towers and in the dust cloud no doubt and this lead to illness and death due cancer. Laws were absolutely broken regarding architectural research on the structure failure. These laws were created to support Architectural & Engineering industries ability to improve their technology. The laws were broken by not allowing the research.
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The disappearance of the channel 7 coverage where a reporter ran up to one of the (umpteen) fire chiefs saying that there were rumors that Building 7 was going to go down and the chief threating to have her arrested for unnecessarily spreading panic because it was structurally intact and completely unaffected. Just over an hour later, whoops, there it went.
That sequence of events has haunted me for years and I still have never seen the footage replayed. I would appreciate a link if ANYONE has it available.
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Building 7 was hit by a plane!! oh wait it wasn't.. Didn't Larry himself personally admit to pulling the plug on it? [youtube.com] or wasn't building 7 announced as being knocked down while it was still in plain sight? [youtube.com]
What was in building 7? Who were P Tech? what about the hundreds of other 'your pants are down' moments that happened on that day? Sloppiest op in history?
wiki paragraph [wikipedia.org]
Re: Sorry, Wikipedia is not a credible source. (Score:2)
It is where it's quoting reliable sources.
WTC7 exploded (Score:1)
It is a fact that explosions were involved in the destruction of WTC7. Eyewitness accounts report multiple explosions. A firefighter yelled "WTC7 is exploding!" over the firefighter's radio channel. The sound of a huge explosion was captured on video on a street nearby WTC7 during the disaster, people visibly flinching in response. An explosion destroyed the lobby and 1st floor stairwells of the building.
Search for a video called "Barry Jennings 911 WTC7 Full Uncut Interview." He was there. Firefighters res
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Search for a video called "Barry Jennings 911 WTC7 Full Uncut Interview." He was there. Firefighters rescued him from the WTC7 building just before it fell. They killed him for giving that interview, a week later.
A friend of mine searched for that video once. Barely a year later, they pulled his charred and almost-unrecognisable corpse from the smoking wreckage of his battered Smart car.
Yes, he had turned to alcohol as a way of coping with the burden of knowledge, and his somewhat complicated divorce, but I have my suspicions still.
So bring it on (Score:4, Interesting)
These guys want money or they will release the files. So if they do not they got paid. That, if it happens, should tell you something about both groups.
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Regardless of what smarmy things the internal lawyer records might show, there's a good reason for the attorney client privlege, namely, not letting those in power abuse prosecution of opponents to their own advantage.
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You only public threaten want you can not achieve privately, so a big bluff, the taste is all there is or to throw the trail off government hackers, set the media with the mind state that it is blackmail that failed or establish a precedent for mass censorship to prevent data protected by law from reaching the internet.
The actual pastebin link (Score:1)
We don't need no stinking ad-ridden middlemen to tell us, news for n00bs
https://pastebin.com/4F5R8QyQ [pastebin.com]
actually... (Score:2)
Insurance Companies? (Score:2)
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vs
"November the 11th 2001" 9/11/2001
The first way is how everyone, with the exception of the USA, formats and speaks the date. The second is what the USA does.
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In America we actually call the 9th month September. Don't hold your breath on us converting to a metric calendar system, though.
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yet another reason to use ISO 8601 date formats, no one is confused if you say 2001-09-11
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8:01 PM on the 9th of November?
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yet another reason to use ISO 8601 date formats, no one is confused if you say 2001-09-11
How did that help? It is still between the month being 9 or 11. I use the military style. 11 SEP 2001. No confusion at all possible. All months are three letter abbreviation.
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I'm pretty sure it's something that happened on the ~298th day of the year.