Enigmas of the World : Cicada 3301
After a lot of head scratching and a lot of procrastination, I thought of a topic good enough to be converted into a series of blog posts. And the topic is “Secret Societies and Organizations”
Well, that catches your attention doesn’t it? Everyone, at least once in their lives wanted to be in one. When you saw that James Bond movie, you wanted to be a spy .Or be in some top secret military organization. So let me tell you about some of these organizations that are believed to exist for real!
The next dilemma that I was faced with was which one to start with? And I thought, well, Let me start with one that anyone can try to get into, even though very less people actually do. And that is Cicada 3301.
Cicada? Isn’t that an insect? Well, it is. But it is also the most enigmatic organization of the modern world. So let me talk about what it really is and what we know about it till now.
In January of 2012, the world was presented with a puzzle, a picture, posted on 4Chan and then on Reddit.
“We are looking for highly intelligent individuals, to find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck.”
And Cicada 3301 finally introduced itself to the whole world. Just like the mysterious spy you see in a movie, giving you a cryptic clue. Now it was our turn to put on our deerstalkers.
Another image posted on 4Chan read:
“There is a message hidden in this image.
Find it and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few who will make it all the way through.
Good Luck. 3301.”
This was just the first step in the series of clues that followed. Every time someone solved one, they presented the person with another. The puzzles concentrated more on cryptography, programming and computer networking.
The mystery didn’t stop there. Even though the organization released their puzzle online, no one has been able to tell exactly who is behind all this, though people have speculated that it might be a top secret military initiative, or the Illuminati or even terrorist organization at a point of time.
Ever since 2012, Cicada 3301 surfaces in January with a brand new puzzle. Now you would say, those puzzles seem extremely difficult? People have managed to solve the puzzles and cross multiple levels of their testing, but once they cross the top level or reach a higher level, they are never heard from.
Many bloggers have tried solving and did manage to win. They updated with what they found out, but after a while the updates stopped coming and we never knew if they got in or not. 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.
According to one person who completed the 2012 puzzle, those who solved the puzzles were asked questions about their support of information freedom, online privacy and freedom, and rejection of censorship. Those who answered satisfactorily at this stage were invited to a private forum, where they were instructed to devise and complete a project intended to further the ideals of the group. But we really don’t know for sure how much of this is true and how much isn’t.
The puzzles have been seen across various form of media like the internet, telephone, boot-able Linux CD's, physical paper signs, etc. 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.
The puzzles aren’t limited to electronic media too. They have appeared in various locations over the world, in countries like US, Korea.
But, recently in 2016, several fake puzzles popped up. Now the final question: is this a prank? Well, the puzzles they ask are too complex and too challenging to be created just for playing a practical joke. This society appears only once a year for a period of one or two months with some of the most vivid and cryptic puzzles that the world has ever seen.