Cicada 3301

Cicada 3301 logo

Q

Cicada 3301 is a name given to an enigmatic organization that on four occasions has posted a set of complex puzzles and alternate reality games to recruit codebreakers from the public. The first internet puzzle started on January 4, 2012, and ran for approximately one month. A second round began one year later on January 4, 2013, and a third round is ongoing following confirmation of a fresh clue posted on Twitter on January 4, 2014. The stated intent was to recruit "intelligent individuals" by presenting a series of puzzles which were to be solved, each in order, to find the next. No new puzzles were published on January 4, 2015. However, a new puzzle was posted on Twitter on January 5, 2016. The puzzles focused heavily on data security, cryptography, and steganography.

It has been called "the most elaborate and mysterious puzzle of the internet age" and is listed as one of the "top 5 eeriest, unsolved mysteries of the internet" by The Washington Post, and much speculation exists as to its purpose. Many have speculated that the puzzles are a recruitment tool for the NSA, CIA, MI6, or a cyber mercenary group. Others have claimed Cicada 3301 is an alternate reality game, but the fact that no company or individual has taken credit or tried to monetize it, combined with the fact that no known individuals that solved the puzzles have ever come forward, has led most to feel that it is not. Others have claimed it is run by a bank working on cryptocurrency.

Purpose

The stated purpose of the puzzles each year has been to recruit "highly intelligent individuals," though the ultimate purpose remains unknown. Some have claimed that Cicada 3301 is a secret society with the goal of improving cryptography, privacy and anonymity. Others have claimed that Cicada 3301 is a cult or religion.

Resolution

The ultimate outcome of all three rounds of Cicada 3301 recruiting is still a mystery. The final known puzzles became both highly complex and individualized as the game unfolded. Anonymous individuals have claimed to have "won," but verification from the organization was never made and the individuals making the claim have not been forthcoming with information.

An email was reportedly sent to some individuals who completed the 2012 puzzle, revealing that those who successfully solved the puzzles were given a personality assessment. Those who passed this stage were reportedly admitted into the organization, although nothing more is known.

Types of clues

The Cicada 3301 clues have spanned many different communication media including internet, telephone, original music, bootable Linux CDs, digital images, physical paper signs, and pages of unpublished cryptic books. In addition to using many varying techniques to encrypt, encode or hide data, these clues also have referenced a wide variety of books, poetry, artwork and music. Each clue has been signed by the same GnuPG private key to confirm authenticity.

Among others these referenced works include:

Literary and artistic references:

• Agrippa (A Book of the Dead), a poem by William Gibson
• The Ancient of Days, a design by William Blake
• Anglo-Saxon Rune alphabet
• Johann Sebastian Bach
• Cuneiform
• Ecclesiastes
• M. C. Escher
• Francisco Goya
• Gödel, Escher, Bach, a book by Douglas Hofstadter
• Kōans
• Liber AL vel Legis by Aleister Crowley
• The Lady of Shalott, a painting by John William Waterhouse
• The Mabinogion, a series of pre-Christian Welsh manuscripts
• Mayan Numerology
• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a book by William Blake
• Nebuchadnezzar, a design by William Blake
• Newton, a design by William Blake
• Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Song of Liberty, a poem by William Blake
• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Philosophical references:

• Collective consciousness and collective intelligence
• Ego death
• Esotericism
• Gematria
• Global brain
• Jesuit Philosophy
• Carl Jung
• Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah
• Søren Kierkegaard
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Grigori Rasputin
• Jean-Paul Sartre
• Robert Anton Wilson
• Zen Buddhism

Cryptographic, mathematical, and technological references:

• Atbash cipher
• Book ciphers
• Caesar cipher
• Diffie–Hellman key exchange
• Factorization

• General number field sieve

• Kurt Gödel and his incompleteness theorems
• GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG or GPG)
• Francis Heylighen
• GNU/Linux
• Magic squares
• Number theory
• Prime numbers
• Pretty Good Privacy
• RSA Encryption Algorithm
• Self-reference
• Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme
• Steganography in digital images, text, and network protocols
• Strange loops
• The Onion Router (Tor)
• Transposition ciphers
• Vigenère Cipher

Physical locations of clues

Throughout the testing, multiple clues have required participants to travel to various places to retrieve the next clue. These clue locations have included the following cities:

• Annapolis, Maryland, US
• Chino, California, US
• Columbus, Georgia, US
• Dallas, Texas, US
• Erskineville, Australia
• Fayetteville, Arkansas, US
• Granada, Spain
• Greenville, Texas, US
• Haleiwa, Hawaii, US
• Little Rock, Arkansas, US
• Los Angeles, California, US
• Miami, Florida, US
• Moscow, Russia
• New Orleans, Louisiana, US
• Okinawa, Japan
• Paris, France
• Portland, Oregon, US
• Seattle, Washington, US
• Seoul, South Korea
• Warsaw, Poland
• Mexico City, Mexico

Speculation that the Cicada 3301 organization is large and well-funded is supported by the existence of clues in a large number of locations, all quite distant from one another, appearing at the same time.

Allegations against the group

Allegations of illegal activity

Authorities from the Los Andes Province of Chile claim that Cicada 3301 is a "hacker group" and engaged in illegal activities. Cicada 3301 responded to this claim by issuing a PGP-signed statement denying any involvement in illegal activity.

In July 2015, a group calling themselves "3301" claimed to have hacked Planned Parenthood; however, the group appears to have no connection to Cicada 3301. Cicada 3301 later issued a PGP-signed statement stating they "are not associated with this group in any way" and also stated that Cicada 3301 does not "condone their use of our name, number, or symbolism." The hacker group later confirmed that they are not affiliated with Cicada 3301.

Claims of being a cult

As the group has gained notoriety and public attention, many have asserted that the puzzles are an introduction to occult principles, and possibly even recruitment for a cult. Dr. Tim Dailey, a senior research fellow with the Family Research Council analyzed the teachings of Cicada 3301, and stated "the enigmatic Cicada 3301 appears to be drawing participants inexorably into the dark web of the occult a la Blavatsky and Crowley. At the heart of the enchantment is the counterfeit promise of ultimate meaning through self-divination."

Dailey analyzed the puzzles and the Cicada 3301's book Liber Primus and summarized some of the groups' core beliefs:

• There is no inherent meaning in anything, and all is "empty and meaningless"
• Within each person is an ideal state akin to Nietzsche's Übermensch
• The existence of an emergent god-like Global brain made up of all living things and technology, as described by cyberneticist Francis Heylighen
• There is no need for salvation, because there is nothing from which we must be saved
• There is no "real" reality, and what we perceive as reality may be a simulation
• Their use of the term "intelligence" rather than "person" throughout the Liber Primus seems to indicate belief, or at least concern for, sentient artificial intelligence.
• Many of their writings and beliefs focus on ego death
• Liber Primus and other Cicadian texts adhere to an internal Qabalah system based around Cicada 3301's Gematria Primus

Others have claimed that the Cicada 3301 puzzles are a modern and technological equivalent to the enlightenment journey within Western esotericism and Mystery schools.

Influence

The United States Navy released a cryptographic challenge based on the Cicada 3301 recruitment puzzles in 2014 calling it Project Architeuthis.

The plot of "Nautilus", the September 30, 2014 episode of the TV show Person of Interest, featured a large-scale game very similar to the Cicada 3301 puzzles. Both feature a series of worldwide cryptographic puzzles, but as the title implies, these feature the image of a nautilus shell instead of a cicada logo. Person of Interest creator Jonathan Nolan and producer Greg Plageman stated in an interview that Cicada 3301 was the inspiration for the episode: "Episode 2, I’m particularly fascinated by the subject underneath it. Look up Cicada 3301 on the internet. It’s a very interesting concept out there that we then put into a larger story that connects to our show." The game is eventually revealed to have been created by Samaritan, a malicious artificial intelligence that serves as the main antagonist of the show's fourth season, as a means of recruiting operatives.

"Just a Regular Irregular", the November 13, 2014, episode of the TV show Elementary, featured a "math hunt", specifically mentioning its similarity to the Cicada 3301 puzzles multiple times.

The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May, the postmodernist novel by House of Leaves author Mark Z. Danielewski references Cicada 3301.

Artists Rick Steff and Roy Berry of the band Lucero included a Cicada 3301-inspired song on their side-project album Superfluidity. The video, directed by Charlie Fasano, featured artwork taken from the Liber Primus book by Cicada 3301.

See also

• 11B-X-1371
• Cicada
• Mass collaboration
• Secret society
• Webdriver Torso

External Links

• The official Cicada 3301 twitter feed.
• Cicada 3301 - Cicadianism

References