On April 28th, 2014, a strange puzzle appeared on Twitter. It was an encrypted message supposedly sent by a military cryptographer who claimed to have hidden on a submarine, which was being commandeered by a “mysterious enemy” who’d stolen plans for high-grade military weapons. The cryptographer was sending messages that, when cracked, would reveal her location so others could swoop in.
But this wasn’t another clue from 3301. It was from the United States Navy, which, after studying Cicada 3301, thought it’d be cool to launch a promotional puzzle of its own. “We knew about Cicada and were inspired by it,” says Sean Forbes, spokesman for Navy Recruitment Command. The puzzle, called Project Architeuthis, required solvers to decipher the coded messages from the fictional cryptographer – with the prize of proving their prowess to military recruiters. The 10 solvers received certificates of completion from the Navy. It was a pure PR move to make the Navy appeal to young cryptographers. “We know that’s where our audience lives,” Forbes says. “They live online.”
The Navy isn’t the only government organization pulling a Cicada. In May, the National Security Agency, using its @NSACareers handle, posted a strange jumble of letters on its Twitter feed. When decrypted, the letters spelled a message: “Want to know what it takes to work at NSA? Check back each Monday in May as we explore career essentials to protect our nation.” NSA spokeswoman Marci Green Miller tells me the puzzle was an effort to lure “the best and the brightest” young minds into the NSA.
Ron Patrick, the head of recruitment for the Central Intelligence Agency, tells me the agency is discussing development of a Cicada-style puzzle of its own. Patrick first learned of Cicada from his college-age kids, who wanted to know if the CIA had created it, as conspiracy theorists on the Internet suspected. “They thought for sure we were the ones behind it,” he tells me, “but it’s definitely not us.” Patrick, like the erudite solvers, doubts 3301 is affiliated with a government or corporation. But from what he can gather, he says, it’s difficult to really know. “I would hope it’s not a hacking group looking to get talent,” he says, “and turn that talent against us.”
Across the world, cryptographers, scholars, Feds and geeks are speculating as to what the real story is behind 3301. Alan Woodward, a professor at the University of Surrey who specializes in computer security, first suspected that the NSA or the GCHQ was pulling the strings, but he now thinks that the breadth of the puzzle could “point to a large corporation” recruiting skilled cryptographers. Game developer and cryptography expert Elonka Dunin thinks it “just may be one group of people in a chat room giggling,” but adds, “I put word out to my crypto friends about Cicada and came back with a big blank.”
Given the complexity of the puzzles, most believe that 3301 can’t be an individual and has to be at least a small group. Whether or not it has military origins, no one really knows. It could just be one big nerdy head game, engineered by some wayward puzzle masters who simply get off on the pleasures of their own mythmaking. Or it could be, as the Warning suggested, something more high-minded, some missive from a vast conspiracy in the ether. Or maybe it really is the product of some like-minded geeks out to better the world. At the moment, no one really knows for sure – which, of course, is exactly what keeps it intriguing in the first place.
As for Cicada, the mystery didn’t end in 2013 after all. On January 6th, 2014, a Twitter account under the handle @1231507051321 posted another cryptic message in a white font against a black background: “Hello,” it read. “Epiphany is upon you. Your pilgrimage has begun. Enlightenment awaits.” Solvers, however, have spent the better part of a year stuck in the Cicada hole, trying to decipher 58 pages of runes. So far, there’s no word of any solvers completing it. As of this writing in early January – on what would be the fourth anniversary of Cicada’s beginning – die-hards are waiting anxiously to see if or when the 2015 puzzle begins.
But there is one former 3301 member who has decided to surface regardless, Marcus Wanner. For two years, he remained silent and anonymous. He wonders why 3301 had stopped reaching out to him – and wondered if perhaps his brood had done something to annoy them, or somehow not proved its worth. But enough time has passed without word that he figures that now – in the spirit of free information, in which 3301 so staunchly believe – he should share his story and work. “It’s time to go public,” he tells me, in his dorm at Virginia Tech, where he’s studying computer science.
In addition to sharing his story, Marcus has decided to hide the code for CAKES on the darknet, where others might find it and finish what his brood started. Tor Ekeland, an attorney with the Whistleblowers Defense League who has represented several high-profile hacktivists, says such software would be “extremely valuable, because it gives leverage and protection to the whistle-blower. There’s nothing like this out there.” Ever the faithful scout, Marcus says the completion of the project would fulfill the pledge he made to 3301. But, given all the secrecy and misdirection, he isn’t sure how the mysterious puzzle masters will take it. “Hopefully,” he says, “Cicada won’t be on my case.”
Cicada: Solving the Web’s Deepest Mystery, Page 6 of 6