Cicada 3301 is a nickname given to three sets of

puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzl ...

s posted under the name "3301" online between 2012 and 2014. The first puzzle started on January 4, 2012, on

4chan 4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...

and ran for nearly a month. A second round began one year later on January 4, 2013, and then a third round following the confirmation of a fresh clue posted on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

on January 4, 2014. The third puzzle has yet to be solved. The stated intent was to recruit "intelligent individuals" by presenting a series of puzzles to be solved; no new puzzles were published on January 4, 2015. A new clue was posted on Twitter on January 5, 2016. Cicada 3301 posted their last verified

OpenPGP Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is used for signing, encrypting, and decrypting texts, e-mails, files, directories, and whole disk partiti ...

-signed message in April 2017, denying the validity of any unsigned puzzle. The puzzles focused heavily on

data security Data security means protecting digital data, such as those in a database, from destructive forces and from the unwanted actions of unauthorized users, such as a cyberattack or a data breach. Technologies Disk encryption Disk encryption refe ...

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adv ...

steganography Steganography ( ) is the practice of representing information within another message or physical object, in such a manner that the presence of the information is not evident to human inspection. In computing/electronic contexts, a computer file, ...

, and internet anonymity. 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 ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'', and much speculation exists as to its function. Many have speculated that the puzzles are a recruitment tool for the

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collec ...

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

, MI6, a " Masonic conspiracy", or a cyber mercenary group. Others have stated Cicada 3301 is an

alternate reality game An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by inten ...

, although no company or individual has attempted to monetize it. Some of the final contestants believe that Cicada 3301 is a remnant of the late 80s and 90s

Cypherpunk A cypherpunk is any individual advocating widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change. Originally communicating through the Cypherpunks electronic mailing list, informal g ...

movement. '' Dark Web: Cicada 3301'', a film inspired by the organization, was released in 2021.

Purpose

The stated purpose of the puzzles each year was to recruit "highly intelligent individuals", although the ultimate purpose remains unknown. Some claimed that Cicada 3301 is a secret society with the goal of improving

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of ...

and

anonymity Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea he ...

. Others claimed that Cicada 3301 is a cult or religion. According to statements of several people who won the 2012 puzzle, 3301 typically uses non-puzzle-based recruiting methods, but created the Cicada puzzles because they were looking for potential members with cryptography and computer security skills.

Resolution

The first puzzle, of 2012, was solved by Marcus Wanner. According to him, 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. He did not finish his work on a method of general decryption and the website was removed.

Types of clues

The Cicada 3301 clues spanned many different forms of communication media, including the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, telephone, original music, bootable

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

CDs, digital images, physical paper signs, and pages of unpublished cryptic books written in runes. One book, titled ''Liber Primus'', literally "first book", contains many pages, only some of which have been decrypted. In addition to using many varying techniques to encrypt, encode, or hide data, these clues also referenced a wide variety of books, poetry, artwork and music. Each clue was signed by the same

private key to confirm authenticity.

Allegations against the group

Allegations of illegal activity

Authorities from the Los Andes Province of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

claimed that Cicada 3301 is a "hacker group" and engaged in illegal activities. Cicada 3301 responded to this claim by issuing a

PGP PGP or Pgp may refer to: Science and technology * P-glycoprotein, a type of protein * Pelvic girdle pain, a pregnancy discomfort * Personal Genome Project, to sequence genomes and medical records * Pretty Good Privacy, a computer program for the ...

-signed statement denying any involvement in illegal activity. In July 2015, a group calling themselves "3301" hacked into

Planned Parenthood The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA), or simply Planned Parenthood, is a nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health care in the United States and globally. It is a tax-exempt corporation under Internal Reve ...

's database; however, the group appeared to have no association 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 did not "condone their use of our name, number, or symbolism". The hacker group later confirmed that they were not affiliated with Cicada 3301.

Claims of being a cult

As the group gained notoriety and public attention, many asserted that the puzzles were an introduction to

occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

principles, and possibly even recruitment for a

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...

. Conspiracy theorist Tim Dailey, a former senior research fellow with the conservative Christian

Family Research Council The Family Research Council (FRC) is an American evangelical activist group and think-tank with an affiliated lobbying organization. FRC promotes what it considers to be family values. It opposes and lobbies against: access to pornography, emb ...

, analyzed Cicada 3301 puzzles and stated, "The enigmatic Cicada 3301 appears to be drawing participants inexorably into the dark web of the occult ''à la''

Blavatsky Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, uk, Олена Петрівна Блаватська, Olena Petrivna Blavatska (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian mystic and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875 ...

and

Crowley Crowley may refer to: Places * Crowley, Mendocino County, California, an unincorporated community *Crowley County, Colorado * Crowley, Colorado, a town in Crowley County *Crowley, Louisiana, a city * Crowley, Oregon (disambiguation) * Crowley, Te ...

. At the heart of the enchantment is the counterfeit promise of ultimate meaning through self-divination." Others claimed that the Cicada 3301 puzzles are a modern and technological equivalent to the enlightenment journey within

Western esotericism Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...

and mystery schools.

QAnon

During the first months of QAnon's existence, there were rumors that Cicada 3301 was behind "Q", the anonymous figure who originated the conspiracy theory, and that it had created the whole QAnon phenomenon as a form of

live action role-playing game A live action role-playing game (LARP) is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically portray their characters.(Tychsen et al. 2006:255) "LARPs can be viewed as forming a distinct category of RPG because of two unique feature ...

. An early QAnon promoter, media producer Lisa Clapier, urged Cicada 3301 puzzlers to take part in decoding Q's posts and "follow the white rabbit" to QAnon's posts. Despite this, 3301 themselves have not publicly stated to be involved with QAnon in any way.

In popular culture

The

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

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 "Person of interest" is a term used by law enforcement in the United States, Canada, and other countries when identifying someone possibly involved in a criminal investigation who has not been arrested or formally accused of a crime. It has no leg ...

'', 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 The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina. It comprises six living species in ...

shell instead of a cicada logo. ''Person of Interest'' creator

Jonathan Nolan Jonathan Nolan (born 6 June 1976) is a British-American screenwriter, producer, director and author. He is the creator of the CBS science fiction series ''Person of Interest'' (2011–2016) and co-creator of the HBO science fiction western s ...

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 organization is the subject of the 2021 comedy-thriller film '' Dark Web: Cicada 3301''. Directed by

Alan Ritchson Alan Michael Ritchson (born November 28, 1982) is an American actor, model, singer and songwriter. He made his acting debut as Aquaman / Arthur Curry on The CW superhero series ''Smallville'' (2005–2010), where he appeared as a guest star betw ...

, who co-wrote the script with Joshua Montcalm, it stars

Jack Kesy Jack Kesy () is an American actor. On television, he has portrayed Gabriel Bolivar on the FX horror drama ''The Strain'' (2014–2016) and Roller Husser on the TNT dark comedy ''Claws'' (2017–19). He also played Black Tom Cassidy in the Marve ...

Conor Leslie Conor Marie Leslie (born April 10, 1991) is an American actress. Beginning her career in the late 2000s, her first major role was in the thriller film '' Chained'' (2012). She has worked frequently in television, including as a series regular on ...

Ron Funches Ronald Kyle Funches (born March 12, 1983) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. Born in California, Funches spent his early life in Chicago before relocating to Salem, Oregon, as a teenager. He began his comedy career in Portland, Oregon, at ...

Kris Holden-Ried Kris Holden-Ried (born August 1, 1973) is a Canadian actor. Early life and pentathlon Holden-Ried was born in Pickering, Ontario. He studied at Montreal's Concordia University School of Business. He was a champion competitor in riding and fen ...

, Andreas Apergis, and Ritchson. The film follows a hacker who participates in Cicada's recruitment game while evading the

. In the video game ''

Assassin's Creed Origins ''Assassin's Creed Origins'' is a 2017 action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the tenth major installment in the ''Assassin's Creed'' series, following 2015's ''Assassin's Creed Syndicate''. ...

'', a member of the Isu civilisation references Cicada when listing off various mysteries of history.

Music

There were two pieces of music, titled 'the Instar Emergence' and 'Interconnectedness,' accompanying the Cicada clues. However, none of them were part of a standard repertoire, and neither the composers nor performers have been identified. Artists

Rick Steff Rick Steff is a Memphis keyboard artist who has recorded with bands such as Lucero, Cat Power, Dexys Midnight Runners, and Hank Williams Jr. Rick's father is Dick Steff, a trumpet player who appeared on many songs with Elvis Presley, and Dusty ...

and Roy Berry of the band Lucero included a Cicada 3301-inspired song on their side-project album ''Superfluidity''. The music video, directed by Charlie Fasano, featured artwork taken from the ''Liber Primus'' book by Cicada 3301. Japanese artist Camellia included a Cicada 3301-inspired song on his album ''U.U.F.O''.

References

External links

* {{twitter, 1231507051321 Alternate reality games Foreign policy and strategy think tanks Internet memes Internet memes introduced in 2012 Internet mysteries Multidisciplinary research institutes Organizations established in 2012 Puzzle hunts Science and technology think tanks Secret societies Works of unknown authorship