I figured you guys would know more than anyone else.
From Wikipedia: Cicada 3301 is a name given to an organization that on six occasions has posted a set of puzzles and alternate reality games to possibly recruit codebreakers/linguists from the public.[1] 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 following the confirmation of a fresh clue posted on Twitter on January 4, 2014.[2][3] The stated intent was to recruit "intelligent individuals" by presenting a series of puzzles which were to be solved. No new puzzles were published on January 4, 2015. However, a new clue was posted on Twitter on January 5, 2016.[4][5] In April 2017 another PGP signed message was found: Beware false paths. Always verify PGP signature from 7A35090F.[6] That message explicitly denies the validity of any unsigned puzzle, as recently as April 2017.
The puzzles focused heavily on data security, cryptography, and steganography.[1][7][8][9][10]
It has been called "the most elaborate and mysterious puzzle of the internet age"[11] and is listed as one of the "top 5 eeriest, unsolved mysteries of the internet" by The Washington Post,[12] and much speculation exists as to its function. Many have speculated that the puzzles are a recruitment tool for the NSA, CIA, MI6, a "Masonic conspiracy"[13] or a cyber mercenary group.[1][8] 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.[11]
Could be any Intelligence Agency trying to recruit in an edgy kind of way, then again, it could be a stand-alone organization. There is little to nothing to know about them, since as you said, we have nothing beside some weird puzzles and a signature.
Logan Hernandez
Correct. This is a recruitment campaign.
Ethan Phillips
>Who is behind Cicada 3301? Grichka Bogdanoff
Leo Perry
Elaborate modern myth.
The puzzles are all used in many intelligence agencies training programs, I say a faggot who used to work there had a go at it when he left some agency.
Isaiah Myers
Psychopaths with nothing better to do than feel all-powerful and all-knowing when they're just a bunch of LARP'ing fuckheads.
Logan Thomas
there was a documentary about some guys that passed the tests.... it's larping... after passing all the tests.. they had to sit in some chatroom in the deep web and write code for free that would encript stuff
Ryder Nelson
it's an AI hear me out on this one. the puzzles are convoluted and random even when you solve them it's a never ending rabbit hole designed to entrap autists who have an affinity for math and "fighting the power" into a never ending puzzle sinkhole, wasting time etc.
t. have played before
Isaiah Robinson
I participated in most of them and I've concluded it was a bunch of bored anons from /x/ or Sup Forums. The fact that signs popped up everywhere made people assume it was some kind of global intelligence agency but after the /IOTBW/ thing I think it proved anons are capable of doing it.
Fuck that shit was complex.
Eli Perez
Didn't those guys only get down to a certain level? I'm under the impression the liber primus was never decoded?
Oliver Sullivan
Like on person of interest (TV show]?
Levi Barnes
gibberish
Ryder Morgan
no clue i don't watch TV
Carter Russell
>Who is behind Cicada 3301? the hacker known as Sup Forums
Dylan Stewart
On the show, it was an AI recruiting human assets to run missions for it.
Reminds me of godlikeproductions... some times sone user came by and made up a bunch of bullshit about a secret society and some website that will go online at certain date you got -xx time left to finish it, and then the website had a bunch of pages you had to unlock and it the end he was making stuff as people kept progressed... it's bullshit imho
Liam Morris
think of it like fly paper for autists
Jose Stewart
The original thread for Cicada 3301 was posted on Sup Forums several years ago. The original picture had an encrypted file in it that took hackers to a link on the deep web, but I don't know what happened after that. Chances are they're with the CIA or NSA and were looking for programmers and people that know how to hack
