Cicada 3301: The Great Internet Mystery Solved!

Note to Self

WNYC Studios

Self-improvement, Tech, Note, Npr, Education, Public, Wnyc, Manoush, York, To, New, Self, Radio, Business, Technology, Relationships, City, Society & Culture, Zomorodi, Newtechcity

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2014

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For the last two years in January, an enigmatic message has appeared on the internet from an unknown source signed "3301," sending thousands in search of answers to increasingly complicated puzzles and mysteries. But for whom, and to what end? Welcome to Cicada 3301, the "internet mystery that has the world baffled." To solve it, you need to know not only programming and encryption codes, but pre-Christian literature and Mayan numerology (it also helps to have friends around the world). This week New Tech City dives into the internet thriller made up of elaborate secrets and meets the people trying to solve the mystery. It’s a journey through obscure message boards that branches out across the internet and eventually around the globe.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to New Tech City, and I'm your host, Manouche Summerodi.
0:08.0	And to kick off 2014, we want to bring you an internet mystery.
0:13.0	There was this puzzle. It started a very small, and then, as I delve deeper and deeper,
0:18.0	it became more and more complex. It had an international-flated tour, and that's what kind of peaked my attention.
0:23.0	Journalist Chris Bell was one of the first people in the mainstream media,
0:27.0	at least, to report on an internet puzzle called cicada 3301.
0:32.0	Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part and tried to solve it.
0:36.0	Chris's story in the telegraph tracks a puzzle that had hackers and codebreakers around the world,
0:41.0	working all hours to solve a series of incredibly complicated and obscure online challenges.
0:48.0	It's a real quest.
0:50.0	No one knows who created these challenges or why, and the mystery still baffles the underside of the internet.
0:57.0	But we found someone who did solve the puzzle. We think.
1:01.0	It all started two years ago in January 2012.
1:05.0	When, as Chris explains, a message was posted online.
1:10.0	It started off with a simple, black square image, with white writing on released, on an obscure message board.
1:17.0	The message simply read, hello, we are looking for highly intelligent individuals.
1:22.0	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.
1:28.0	We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck, 3301.
1:34.0	And I think why this has been so popular with thousands of people is it's sort of small,
1:40.0	and then the deeper you got into it, the more complex, the more difficult, and the more international actually it became.
1:46.0	I didn't think it was more than some random kid playing games or, or something.
1:52.0	I mean, I didn't think it would be that advanced at first.
	...

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