Cicada 3301: An Internet Mystery

[Credits, References, and More] www.lemmi.no/p/cicada-3301

Imagine reaching the final step and it says “you can now play as Luigi”

At the end there’s a small text saying: “The real prize was the friends we made along the way. Thanks for playing.”

For 4chan users, 2:53 was harder than the Liber Primus puzzle, because they had to go outside.

For anyone wondering, as of July 25, 2023, the puzzle is still stuck on the deciphering of the Liber Primus texts. Not much, if any, progress has been made since this video. There is a dedicated subreddit called r/cicada that is dedicated to the project if you are interested in learning more :)

Dora surely ain't gonna figure this shit out

Teacher: The test isnt even confusing The Test:

5 years after watching this and I STILL desperately want to know what Cicada 3301 actually was (and this is still worth a re-watch!).

My toxic trait is thinking I could've solved this

I love that it’s called cicada. A ton of noise cause by a small, insignificant insect

Imagine solving an incredibly difficult and secretive puzzle and then getting hired on as a programmer

youtube randomly recommending me this after 5 years

When I listened to interconnectedness, I noticed the chords were constant. This reminded me of Pythagoras for some reason. Pythagoras believed that numbers were the ultimate reality, he taught his students to worship the mathematical order of the universe. He was also heavily interested in music and harmony, and saw the universe as a grand harmony. Pythagoras, however, was a cult leader. A religious figure. Well, I searched for any relation between Pythagoras and cicadas just to see if my weird hunch had anything to it, and sure enough, our understanding of cicada behavior through mathematics begins with Pythagoras. This means nothing likely but who knows, maybe the cult of Pythagoras still exists. They believed in immortality btw.

This could’ve been the greatest Rick Roll ever in the history of the universe

imagine a 10 year old calling his mom but misses it by one digit and ends up calling the cicada number

People who assumed this was a recruiting test for a secret organization just don't get how passionate puzzle people can be about puzzles.

I think one of the biggest mistakes Cicada made was to involve leg work-- once leg work is involved, you're not going find the people who solved the puzzle, instead you're just going to find the grunts who do the leg work. Sounds like they did find some people they want, but they'd probably find even more if they had cut out the leg work phase. The other mistake is not doing a better job to keep the interest of their winning contestants-- to be fair, maybe they did find a few who actually stayed and were interested in their goals, but people would probably be more interested if they understand what the group is trying to do, and what they should prepare for... Sometimes people say yes, but then a few years later, the answer will no longer be yes. You can't really deal with people this way, like expecting them to still be in your pocket/aligned with you after years, when they aren't part of anything you did so far or are given no information for years. Social intelligence is just so undervalued by these highly intelligent type sometimes-- Sometimes this elitism and exclusiveness just rubs me the wrong way. I get not wanting the riffraff, but cramming your group with the same type of people means it's unlikely to detect a mistake that would have been apparent to people with a different skill set. (Assuming this really isn't just some sort of elaborate internet game. Honestly, as soon as leg work is involved, I thought it was just a game akin to the one from Gravity Falls-- which was really great and cool! But if it was an internet game, they probably could have done better than claiming to be people working on internet privacy/freedom of information, so I assume they are serious.) However, I think putting contradictory things in the email was brilliant. Without giving a clear signal of what answer they are really looking for, people are more likely to just answer honestly, rather than trying to game the answer. Spiking your interview with trap questions is a good way to weed out types you want to avoid. (Although maybe what they really believe is, only some information should be free. I mean, I don't believe ALL information should be free. The ones involving public interest, sure, but not the personal ones.) I also think going to 4chan is a good idea, as people there probably value their anonymity (hence align with the privacy concerns), so it was probably right place. Again, the biggest mistake probably was involving leg work.

Teacher: the test isn’t that hard, you just need to study. The test:

Imagine getting to the end and it just says, “gottem”.

I always thought and had in mind that people related to the creator of the Bitcoin (Satoshi Nakamoto) were also creators of Cicada and some other projects.