What was Cicada 3301? Internet's most mind-baffling puzzle! Today you will get answer on this.
Cicada 3301 is one of the most mind baffling puzzle which amazed many users and yes it was also among the mysterious one.
Before 2 years from now, a cryptic message appeared on internet asking for "Highly Intelligent Individuals". It is to be claimed that it was first appeared on the website 4chan.org. Many users finds interest in it but they never they thought how hard it would be. Lets find out where it started from where it ended and what is main motive behind this.
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Image like this was uploaded by Anonymous user. |
Cicada 3301 Mystery
was originally started from the website 4chan.org
What is 4chan.org?
Where Cicada 3301 Started from?
A message with white coloured font on a black background with a mysterious message. The date was Jan 4, 2012:
"Hello. We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them we had organised a test. There is hidden message in this image. Find out, and it will lead to the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few ho will make it all the way through. Good luck."
At the last it was signed by "3301"
And the hunt begins from here, many hackers and many cyber experts were ready to scratch their minds.
There are few known people in the world who had successfully decoded the message
The most brilliant minded just took it as a good brain teaser.
What types of clues was given?
The Cicada 3301 clues have spanned many different communication media including internet, telephone, original music, bootable Linux Cds, Digital iamges, physical paper signs and pages of unpublished cryptic books. In addition to using vary ing techniques to encrypt, encode, or hide dat a, these clues also have referred a wide variety of books, poetry, artwork, and music. Each clue has been signed at the by the same GnuPG private key to confirm authenticity. In simple words, it was signed by the 3301 at the end.
Where the puzzle took the users?
To understand how hard Cicada is, one only needs to look at the complexity of each clue that leads to successive parts of the puzzle–all which need to be completed in order to solve the Cicada mystery.
From the first image that was posted, Eriksson used steganography software to extract a message encoded with a shift cipher, where each letter of the text actually corresponds to another letter. Once he decoded the cypher, it revealed a URL where another image of a duck was posted. Here, he used steganography tools to reveal a hidden book code of a list of two numbers separated by a colon. The book code led to a Reddit URL with Mayan numerals on the top of the page. Eriksson noticed that several posts by a user using a pseudonym seemed to consist of encoded text. This text was the “book” the book code could be used to decode. But to find the cypher he needed to find the key first, which he gleaned from translating the Mayan numerals.
The now decoded text of the anonymous Reddit user’s postings revealed two images, both of which Eriksson used steganography tools on to find hidden messages with riddles inside them. The answer to these riddles were strings of digits that was a phone number in Texas. Calling the phone number led to a voicemail that read, “Very good. You have done well. There are three prime numbers associated with the original final.jpg image. 3301 is one of them. You will have to find the other two. Multiply all three of these numbers together and add a .com to find the next step. Good luck. Goodbye.”
Looking at the metadata of the image that started it all, Eriksson thought its height and width dimensions could be the other two numbers. He did the math and landed at a URL which had another image of a cicada and a countdown that told him when to return to the site.
When the countdown was over, the cicada image was replaced with strings of digits that looked like GPS coordinates. The coordinates led to telephone poles in countries around the world, including in Spain, Russia, America, France, Japan, and Poland. Due to geographic limitations, Eriksson had to rely on other people on the Cicada 3301 trail in those parts of the world. What the locals found were physical posters with images of a cicada and a QR code.
Eriksson scanned the QR code, which lead to another two images, inside of which were more hidden text, including text from what Eriksson found was the William Gibson poem Agrippa. Noting that the text referenced prime numbers, Eriksson surmised that perhaps the book code he used on the text found on Reddit might reveal where to go next if he used it on the Gibson poem. It worked. He was directed to an address on the anonymous Tor network.
However, by the time he arrived, Cicada 3301 had put up a message stating that they were disappointed in the groups of people that had formed to share parts of the puzzles they discovered without any one member completing all the steps along the way, as Eriksson had done.
At last who was behind Cicada 3301?
Nobody knows for sure the identity of the group behind the puzzles but speculation about who may be behind it includes the Freemasons, the Illuminati, hacker group Anonymous, the US Government or just a troll having some fun. Saying that there is only one behind this would be wrong but there can be an organisation or a group of nasty friends.
Has anyone solved the puzzle?
Eriksson did manage to get to the end of the puzzle set in 2012, even taking time off work in an attempt to crack it.
He just missed out however after reaching the final server to discover the winners had apparently already been chosen. Eriksson heard that those chosen had been asked to solve puzzles in private.
Many offline places it was seen and challenged users!
A user tweeted this image when he was passing through that road. He tweeted this to @NSAGov.
Many believe the key to solving the puzzle is deciphering the Liber Primus although other players have cited it as a source of frustration.
Hope this article helped you, share it with your friends.Thanks for reading!
