^^ Possible 2018 puzzle ... though some claim that they're not legit because no PGP signatures have been found. Z 3301 has claimed to be a 2012 winner ... and now running the puzzles. (based on emails claimed to be sent in 2017 - http://www.defango.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/CICADA2017...)
The most recent thing I've seen get dropped is a video on youtube a couple of days ago ...
I worked on x11-b-1381 until there appeared to be an encoding error in a variation of the enigma cipher they used that made it unsolvable. The author insists it wasn't a problem, but I think that one really derailed the puzzle.
It was very immersive, but the author giving interviews broke the spell.
There was another aspect of it that isn't talked about much, which was that the x11-b puzzle author seemed to launch several hundred Tor exit nodes (named for the puzzle) out of holland if I remember correctly. I didn't have my gear or the time to start trying to find and extract injected malware from the nodes or do diffs against the videos from the internet vs. those exit nodes, but since that was a next level play, I couldn't take the time to run down that rabbit hole.
to this day I'm still curious as to what the people behind 3301 were aiming to achieve. They claimed they were building crypto tools for a freer internet (in typical cypherpunk fashion) and that the puzzles were a way to recruit skilled and like-minded individuals. But what have they built/done, if anything? Especially given the effort that went into creating the puzzles.
It seems like they are working on stuff. But it is unclear how large or what the structure of the organization is. What they actually get up to continues to be a mystery.
It seems they did have a finalist do some work on something called CAKES (Cicada Anonymous Key Escrow System)...
It sounds like they rolled up his brood through and the project never came to fruition. Which is too bad, because it sounds really cool.
Whatever the case, the do have an air of secrecy around them. But yeah from what I can tell they're looking for talented individuals to work on crypto & privacy projects, which is awesome. Kind of reminds me of the old Telecomix folks.
A site came up a while back cicada3301.org, and then was either debunked as not legit or something happened, and was promptly taken down... it is... still however online ... though the DNS no longer points to the server.
I found this by doing a shodan search for Cicada 3301...
yeah I read that site a while back. The ideas espoused there seem to line up at least roughly with the philosophy 3301 spoke about, and it's theoretically interesting, though it seems to have a generous dose of speculation and esotericism thrown in too - not that that's uncommon when it comes to 3301 theories.
I read about CAKES and the brood system, but it seems like the 1 or 2 years they managed to get people together (that are publicly known about), they sacked off the brood fairly quickly.
8 comments
[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 21.0 ms ] thread^^ Possible 2018 puzzle ... though some claim that they're not legit because no PGP signatures have been found. Z 3301 has claimed to be a 2012 winner ... and now running the puzzles. (based on emails claimed to be sent in 2017 - http://www.defango.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/CICADA2017...)
The most recent thing I've seen get dropped is a video on youtube a couple of days ago ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fc990VvyvU
There's several groups still working on solving the Liber Primus from 2014 ...
It was very immersive, but the author giving interviews broke the spell.
There was another aspect of it that isn't talked about much, which was that the x11-b puzzle author seemed to launch several hundred Tor exit nodes (named for the puzzle) out of holland if I remember correctly. I didn't have my gear or the time to start trying to find and extract injected malware from the nodes or do diffs against the videos from the internet vs. those exit nodes, but since that was a next level play, I couldn't take the time to run down that rabbit hole.
It seems they did have a finalist do some work on something called CAKES (Cicada Anonymous Key Escrow System)...
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/cicada-sol...
It sounds like they rolled up his brood through and the project never came to fruition. Which is too bad, because it sounds really cool.
Whatever the case, the do have an air of secrecy around them. But yeah from what I can tell they're looking for talented individuals to work on crypto & privacy projects, which is awesome. Kind of reminds me of the old Telecomix folks.
A site came up a while back cicada3301.org, and then was either debunked as not legit or something happened, and was promptly taken down... it is... still however online ... though the DNS no longer points to the server.
I found this by doing a shodan search for Cicada 3301...
http://185.92.222.67/
(I've got a local copy backed up already in case the author of the site takes it down. But it's an interesting read.)
I read about CAKES and the brood system, but it seems like the 1 or 2 years they managed to get people together (that are publicly known about), they sacked off the brood fairly quickly.