Kayla: I don't know how to do this.
Chris: This episode. Yeah, well, I don't. The formula is banter, and then we talk. Although it sounds like we don't have time for banter.
Kayla: Yeah, we don't have the emotional bandwidth for banter. I don't have the emotional bandwidth for banter.
Chris: Why did you do this?
Kayla: This topic? Yeah, well, I'll talk about it.
Chris: For weeks now, you've been like, it's too much.
Kayla: I just. When do we say, welcome to our podcast?
Chris: Oh, do it. Okay. We can do it now. I'm Chris.
Kayla: I'm Kayla.
Chris: And welcome to our podcast.
Kayla: It's called cult or just weird.
Chris: I. That it is. Welcome to cult are just weird.
Kayla: There was a buzz.
Chris: You know, I was reading an article today that said to just not worry about that stuff.
Kayla: Well, I.
Chris: That it brings some potential authenticity and charm. I guess you could say we have plenty of charm. No, no. Actually, I feel like we have a dearth of charm. There's a charm dearth.
Kayla: Dearth always means the opposite of what I think it's supposed to mean.
Chris: I have a charm shaped hole wherever I. My charm should be true. So.
Kayla: Well, welcome to our podcast.
Chris: Yes. Welcome to culture. Just weird. Especially for you returning folks. Thank you for listening in every week.
Kayla: You're truly the best.
Chris: Yep.
Kayla: I am gonna be honest.
Chris: That's a first.
Kayla: I know. It truly is. This is a deeply emotional episode for me.
Chris: Like, emotional, bad. Like, this isn't gonna be another suicide.
Kayla: Oh, God, no.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: No. Just because, like, I. The emotional connection I have to this topic is very special for me. I don't have a good way of getting into it. So we're just gonna get into it.
Chris: That's often the best way, is jump in the deep end.
Kayla: But this topic, like, many topics and many more topics to come, was like measuring the fucking coastline. Because the closer I went, the bigger it got. And not in, like, a fun, sexy way. In a terrible. There's too much research way.
Chris: So, what Kayla is referencing, for those of you who are not quite as mathematically inclined, is the coastline problem as.
Kayla: Me, is what you're saying. I'm very mathematically.
Chris: Well, I mean, enough to be able to make that analogy the other day when you were super blazed. But anyway, I just watched YouTube. The coastline problem is sort of like a well known mathematical problem that says, basically the coastline of any country, of any region. If you measure it can vary wildly depending on how granular your measurements are. So, like, you know, are you measuring in 1 mile increments or 1 meter increments or 1 mm increments. And that can actually change the answer quite a bit.
Kayla: The smaller your measurements get, the longer the fucking coastline becomes.
Chris: Yeah. So you're basically saying that as you looked deeper into this topic, the bigger and bigger it looked, we.
Kayla: Could do an entire season about this topic.
Chris: No.
Kayla: Yes. Oh.
Chris: Have there been other podcasts about it?
Kayla: You know, I didn't look. I think because I listened to so many podcasts from my previous episode, I didn't. Well, yeah, I didn't look and see if there were podcasts for this. There's plenty of YouTube vids.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: I'm sure there's other podcasts that have done this topic. It's not that esoteric.
Chris: Right. But to your point, I mean, I guess teal had their. She had her own whole podcast devoted to her. So I guess whatever this is could theoretically be the same.
Kayla: Oh, this could have easily an entire six episode arc.
Chris: Okay, so I'm dying to know.
Kayla: So I tried to get it down to not a six episode arc. We'll see if I succeeded. Before I tell you my topic, I'm gonna go ahead and start at the beginning of time. I'll just read what I said. I'll just read what I wrote.
Chris: Yeah, that's generally what scripts are for.
Kayla: In 2013, I made a discovery. I was doing research for a script. I was writing about online hacking communities and the deep web in general. And as you know, and I think as our listeners probably know at this point, I tend to go down multiple rabbit holes when I do research. And that's exactly what led me today's topic. But before I announce to our audience what our topic is, I want to read a description of a particular animal, which is going to be a dead giveaway for you. So don't guess until I'm done because I want to give.
Chris: Boo.
Kayla: Sorry. I want to give our smart. I know. I want to give our listeners a chance to guess what we'll be talking about in case they've already come across this topic before. And even listeners, if you can't guess, the animal's description is an important metaphor for what we'll be talking about today. So again, if you know what the answer is, co host Chris, don't shout it out.
Chris: I'll take animal themed cults for a thousand. Alex.
Kayla: This animal, we'll call it blank for now, belongs in the taxonomic order hemiptera. True bugs.
Chris: That's not.
Kayla: Oh, Hemiptera.
Chris: I know. True bugs.
Kayla: True bugs. They generally have red eyes and black bodies. Their wings are translucent with orange veins. The underside of the abdomen may be black, orange or striped. They are small, typically two to 3 cm in lengthen. Blank animals spend almost the full length of their long lives underground, feeding on xylem fluids from the roots of deciduous forest trees, generally in the eastern United States in the spring of their 13th or 17th year, depending on the cycle, the mature nymphs emerge in the springtime at any given locality, synchronously and in tremendous numbers.
Chris: Sounds like sand people.
Kayla: Sand people?
Chris: You know, like from Star Wars. Obi Wan Kenobi is like, they'll come back and in greater numbers.
Kayla: It's not sand people, but good guess.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: After this prolonged development phase, the adults are active for only about four to six weeks. The males aggregate into chorus centers and attract mates. You've probably heard these chorus centers. If you live in the eastern US and have gone outside during the summer, especially at dusk, their singing sounds like buzzing, ticking, or like buggy calls.
Chris: Is that like how crickets sound?
Kayla: I should probably play some sounds of it at some point.
Chris: We could totally splice some in here. That'd be sweet.
Kayla: Mated females lay eggs, and within two months of their original emergence, the life cycle is complete and the adult cicadas die and new ones come back in 13 or 17 years.
Chris: Okay, cicadas. They're cicadas. Okay? That's what the bugs are.
Kayla: Yeah. Then I said, I'll give our listeners a moment to guess, but I already said what it was, so I won't give you a minute to guess. If you couldn't guess it from before that.
Chris: Am I allowed to. Am I allowed to say my guest?
Kayla: I already said it.
Chris: Well, you said the name of the bug. Am I allowed to say the name of the guests of the organization or the thing?
Kayla: Oh, yeah. Oh, you're totally allowed.
Chris: Okay. What is Cicada 3301?
Kayla: Alex, that is exactly what we're talking about today.
Chris: Wow, that was quite the extensive description of the actual cicada.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: For a second I thought you were like, there could be some, like, bug. Bug worshippers. I don't know.
Kayla: It probably is, but that's not what we're talking about today.
Chris: Oh, man. Yeah. Remember when you were into this? This was super dope.
Kayla: It still is super dope. It was dope then, it is dope now, and it will be dope until the end of time. So for our listeners who may not know Cicada 3301, they are a mysterious, shadowy online group. That is the easiest way to describe them in the simplest way to describe them. We're going to be going through a lot here. There is a lot of information. So let's just start. We're going to start not where the story begins, but where I began the story. Wait, do I even do that? Yeah, we're going to start. And then we quickly start at the beginning. Now, when I first learned about Cicada 3301 or Cicada or 3301, as I'll probably call it, all of those things, saying cicada 3301 altogether is just way too much work.
Kayla: When I first learned about this group in 2013, it was still a fairly obscure thing as it had only been around for about a year. Six years later, it's a somewhat more mainstream, well known happening. So some of our listeners may have heard about it. Maybe some of our listeners have even gotten involved like I did six years ago, but maybe not.
Chris: I hope somebody listens that's like, oh, man, involved in making it.
Kayla: I'll literally throw myself off of a building. That will be way too cool.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: So now let's go ahead and start at the beginning. Let's start when cicada 3301 emerged from underground for the first time. January 4, 2012.
Chris: I see what you did there. Emerged from underground.
Kayla: Yep.
Chris: Yeah. Nice.
Kayla: Also, January 4, 2012 feels like literally a lifetime ago.
Chris: Yeah, I know.
Kayla: Before we jump in or continue jumping in, I do want to give a disclaimer that I'm going to be covering a lot of very specific Internet topics using niche jargon, talking about coding and all that kind of stuff. So I'm going to do my best to not get too in the weeds with all that and try to explain what I'm talking about. Well, but I'm asking my co host to please stop me and let me know if I'm not being clear or if I'm getting way too myopic.
Chris: Wait, so what does myopic mean?
Kayla: What does myopic mean?
Chris: I'm just. I was doing the. I was. There was a meta joke because I'm supposed to stop you and ask if I'm confused. And so I asked about the sentence about being confused anyway. Okay, I thought it was funny.
Kayla: It was. But whatever it was, if it were being received by a more intelligent person than myself.
Chris: Mmm.
Kayla: Yeah. All right, let's go. On January 4, 2012, four Chan users browsing the forum site called X, which is a board specifically for paranormal content. Do I need to explain what four chan is?
Chris: It's just an online community. It's sort of like a deep, dirty part of the web. There's some.
Kayla: It's a forum.
Chris: It's a forum.
Kayla: Four chan is. Sorry. I did write a little bit about it. So. So four chan is popular amongst a certain subset of Internet users largely because it can be used fairly anonymously and there are a few rules. And like Chris said, it's kind of. It can get a little dirty. It can get a little dark, get a little icky. Get a little icky. So four chan users browsing X, which is for paranormal content, noticed an innocuous post go up? My rule of thumb is to largely not recommend people go to four chan because there's just like a lot of intense gore and porn and, like, on certain boards, not on all boards, but it can be a very distressing, toxic, disturbing place with mean people. But at the same time, I've loved me some four chan in the past.
Kayla: It has some cool things, much like cicada 3301.
Chris: So this x was a subsection of four chan. It was a board called with the name x, and it was about paranormal content. Paranormal content. Okay.
Kayla: Anyway, this post that we're talking about went up as an image, a black square with sparse white text. And the text read, hello. We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck, 3301.
Chris: So my first question.
Kayla: Yes?
Chris: If they were looking for highly intelligent individuals, why did they go to four chan?
Kayla: Oh, burn.
Chris: Boom. Get dunked on four chance.
Kayla: Oh, man, they're gonna dox us.
Chris: Oh, no. I'm scared.
Kayla: You should be.
Chris: Not really.
Kayla: You said that was your first question. Do you have a second question?
Chris: No, my first question of the podcast.
Kayla: Oh, gotcha. Okay, first question of the podcast. I just wanna say, like, literally reading that gives me the chills. Like, I just. I love it so fucking much. And I. If I had a time machine, this is definitely a point in time that I would go back to. To be able to experience.
Chris: It's like that movie, the game, Michael Douglas movie a little bit. It's like.
Kayla: But it's not. Okay that.
Chris: But it does feel like a movie.
Kayla: Oh, a thousand percent. We'll get into it. The image was just that. Like, that was the whole thing. Black square, white text. There's a message hidden in this picture. Four Chan users immediately got to work because the Internet's a great place and people tried all sorts of cool ways to try and extract a hidden message from the image. I love that people started trying to solve this immediately. Didn't just, like, write it off and, like, just going off what you said about the game, like, there were a lot of early on guesses as to what this would end up being. And most people assumed that it was an ARG or alternate reality game that would end up promoting a product or a movie or content because, like, Microsoft had done that with AI.
Kayla: Like, they released an ARG and I think, like, Batman did it. And, like, there's just similar things that happened like this in the past. And there were also guesses as to this being the beginning of a government agency recruitment process, either like NSA or CIA, because the government has literally used methods like this before, like dating all the way back to the forties. Just to expand on what I said. An ARG stands for alternate reality game. Did I already say that?
Chris: Yes, but that's okay.
Kayla: And an alternate reality game, I will allow my co host to explain.
Chris: Oh, great. Why don't you. Yeah, throw that one over the wall at me. Cool. I mean, I guess I am the game dev. So that makes sense. So an ARG, an alternate reality game is a game that essentially takes place in real life, for lack of a better word, and involves like, the interactive elements of ARG's are just the things in your everyday life. So somebody who's running an ARg might see to it that you get a phone call or an email or potentially maybe even like snail mail. I don't know. But there's just these elements that happen in real life and it's sort of like a real life quest. So it's like, aRg's are very much like the movie the game.
Kayla: It's the movie the game. Or it's like any of those. Like, if you do hunt a killer as a subscription service, like, that's kind of an ARG. There's lots of different examples. Yeah, it really is.
Chris: Yeah. So a lot of times they follow the form of like, scavenger hunts or something. And yeah, they were popular as like a guerrilla marketing tool for a hot minute there, too.
Kayla: So I'm gonna go ahead and spoil you amongst all of this speculation as to what this image was, who the group behind it was. Even with all these guesses, and even it being now, seven years later, no one actually knows what Cicada 3301 is, who's behind it, or what its purpose is meant to be.
Chris: Seven years later.
Kayla: Yes. Brightest 2019. Yep. Seven years later.
Chris: Holy crap.
Kayla: No one knows. Truly no one knows. Okay, back to the image. So people began tinkering with a way to extract a message. Folks tried to adjust the contrast in Photoshop and other various methods, but what ended up working was opening the image file in a text editor. There you could read the bytes of the image. And at the bottom of the text version of the image, all of the bytes at the bottom, there was a line that had been clearly added that said Claudius Caesar, followed by a string of encoded text.
Chris: So you're talking about that. So a text file for an image is almost like a. The code that makes up that image. So it's like looking under the hood.
Kayla: Exactly. And then hidden inside of the messages code was a physically added, like, here's the clue.
Chris: So it'd be like if I opened the hood of a car and there was like a little note there.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: So it said, claudius Caesar was followed by a string of numbers and letters, a string of coded text. And this was a reference people quickly figured out because people on the Internet are smart. This was a reference to a Caesar cipherte, which is a simple and pretty well known encryption technique. Have you heard of it?
Chris: I haven't heard. I know what a cipher is, but I haven't heard of Caesar Cipher.
Kayla: Caesar Cipher. It's like it's been around for a long time, encryption. Just so I'm not getting ahead of myself, encryption basically means just taking something and rewriting it in a code that has a key so that it can be decoded or unencrypted. So the Caesar cipher works this way. It's a substitution cipher in which each letter in the plain text is. Is replaced by a letter, some fixed number of positions down the Alphabet. For example, if you used a left shift of three, the letter D would then correspond to the letter a, e would become b, and so on. Does that make sense?
Chris: Yes.
Kayla: And it's important to know. It's not important to know. It's just cool. This method was named after Julius Caesar, who used this exact method in his private letters. So it's been around for a long time, which is probably one of the reasons why it was an early clue, because, you know, people could get to that one pretty quickly.
Chris: Sure.
Kayla: So if you ran this string of garbled text through a Caesar cipher, it became a URL. Following that URL took solvers to a new image file, very different from the first. It's maybe one of my favorite. I'm not sure. This one is of a decoy. Duck like a duck? Decoy like a fake duck.
Chris: So it's a picture.
Kayla: It's a picture of a fake duck. And the text in the image says, whoops. Just decoys this way. Looks like you can't guess how to get the message out. Do I want to show you a picture of this duck?
Chris: Yes, I do.
Kayla: Okay. Give me a second.
Chris: So. All right, so just to recap what we've done so far, so on this message board, on four chan, on this X message board was posted an image with some cryptic text about following some clues. And nobody could figure it out until they actually looked at the code for the image. And in the code for the image was a URL, a link to another website. And this other website had a picture of a duck that said, this is just decoys.
Kayla: This picture of this duck.
Chris: That's a pretty good looking duck.
Kayla: That's a cute little duck. Is it a duck deck?
Chris: Is that a wooden duck?
Kayla: It's a wooden duck.
Chris: Yeah, it's a wooden duck.
Kayla: So, okay. People knew that they had to do something with this image to continue the puzzle, but they didn't know what because it didn't say. It just said, whoops. After some time, solvers figured out they needed to use a program called outguess. Hence the clue and the message. You can't guess how to get the image out. So let's talk about outguess. Actually, let's talk about that clue, because I love that clue because it's so simple. But if you didn't already have existing knowledge of outguess, you never would have been able to put those like that two and two together.
Chris: No, I didn't know what outguess was.
Kayla: Right. I didn't know what outguess was either. A lot of people didn't. But because of the collaborative nature of this, because people were working together online, like, knowledge got shared pretty quickly. Now, let's talk about outguess. I had never heard about outguess before I started learning about Cicada, and full disclosure, I think I talk about this more later. Following Cicada helped me learn a lot about computers and very subscriptive programs. I've lost a lot of it now, but for a while, I was pretty engrossed in all of this. Anyway, outguess is a steganography program designed.
Chris: What?
Kayla: Yeah, just give me a second. It's a steganography program designed to hide messages within images.
Chris: Oh, my God.
Kayla: If that doesn't mean anything to you, allow me to explain, because steganography is fucking cool. And I definitely used it in that script that I was writing.
Chris: It's the study of stegosauruses, right?
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: This cult is run by dinosaurs.
Chris: Oh my God.
Kayla: Steganography is the practice of concealing a file message, image or video within another file message, image or video. There's a lot of ways to use it, but for our purposes we're mostly going to be discussing finding hidden files within images.
Chris: So it's in the image itself?
Kayla: It is in the image itself, dog.
Chris: So it's not in the code, it's in the picture.
Kayla: It's so hard to explain because I'm not that smart at it. I'm not that smart at it. But like the image is in there and then you have to run it through outguess and then you get the thing.
Chris: Okay, so there might be like some embedded or like layered imagery or something.
Kayla: Yes, it's like a very specific, like you have to use tools to make this happen. You have to use tools like outguess, using outguess, which is a totally free program, by the way, and it has been around since at least 1999. Using outguess is generally undetectable. Like if you look at a photo or an image, you can't look at it and just know, like, oh, that's got something hidden in it.
Chris: You just have to, like, you just have to know.
Kayla: You have to know. Cicada does leave behind visual artifacts solvers can tell if there's something hidden in the image because they are trying to get people to follow their clues. Outguess truly only works on a Linux system. And if you are trying to solve 3301, you need a Linux system generally.
Chris: So it's just a different operating system. It's a competitor to Windows essentially, right?
Kayla: You can run outguess on Windows, but you're not going to get the full function, so don't even try. Okay, solvers ran the doc decoy image through outguess and discovered the following message. Here is a book code. To find the code and more information, go two. And then they gave a Reddit subreddit that was Reddit.com r, then a seemingly random string of numbers and letters. There was then a string of ratios and then simply good luck, 3301.
Chris: So on the, so Reddit is another forum that people were directed to. And it was there that there was a string of ratios.
Kayla: No, the string of ratios was still in this message.
Chris: It was in the duck message.
Kayla: Here is a book code. To find the book and more information, go to this Reddit string of ratios which was the actual book code.
Chris: Okay, good luck.
Kayla: So let's talk about now the subreddit that the message linked us to. Okay, the subreddit, which I will just call r a two, contained eternity shit ton of posts, all from a single user named cagethrottle us. And I think I did check this. I think the only posts that this Reddit user has are two, r a two. So it's a throwaway count and account.
Chris: So it's a user that was created just for the purpose of posting to the cicada subreddit.
Kayla: Each post here was just a title with no subject. And the titles again were all seemingly meaningless strings of letters and numbers and characters. Among these bizarre posts were two images now referred to as welcome and problems. Like, that's kind of what they're called in the community. Welcome and problems. Welcome was an image of a welcome mat and problems looks like a series of the same compressed image of a book cover. And of course each one contained an outguess message.
Chris: And these were posts on the Reddit.
Kayla: These are posted on Reddit. So users being like, oh, there was outgas before, maybe there's outgas here. There was from welcome we got. From here on out, we will cryptographically sign all messages with this key. It is available on the MIT key servers. Key id seven a 35090 f as posted in r a two. Patience is a virtue. Good luck.
Chris: So does that mean that MIT, somebody at MIT is behind this?
Kayla: No. So I will address that in 1 second. Okay, so what followed after this message was a PGP signature, which looks like a large block of seemingly random text. Let's talk about PGP. MIT, the MIT key server is simply like a service that MIT provides where you can host various kinds of encryption keys there.
Chris: Okay, so it's like anyone's box that they maintained, right.
Kayla: And so you don't have to go to MIT or whatever to. Okay, this does not mean it's MIT affiliated.
Chris: I see.
Kayla: Let's talk about PGP. Cause we haven't talked about enough obscure Internet shit yet.
Chris: I gotta admit, when we started this podcast, I was. I would not have predicted the sentence, let's talk about PGP on our podcast. I would not have predicted that you would have said that.
Kayla: Do you know what PGP is?
Chris: I've heard of it. Like, I know it has to do with like, coding web stuff. Web coding. I don't know, man. Just tell me, please.
Kayla: PGP stands for pretty good privacy. And it is a. Don't laugh. My co host almost spit his beer everywhere.
Chris: I'm definitely not drinking beer on work time. Work hours. Please continue.
Kayla: Pretty good. Privacy. It is a data encryption and decryption program that provides cryptographic privacy. Privacy, yeah, privacy. Cryptography. I can't say it.
Chris: It's over.
Kayla: Cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. I'm still not entirely clear on how it works, and this is even after having used it a few times myself. But I'll try to explain. Basically, using a PGP key ensures the authenticity of a message, meaning that cicada has a PGP key only they can use and distinguishes them from imposters.
Chris: Okay, so it's like the old royal seals where it's like the only the.
Kayla: King had the royal seal. Literally, if you like, look up stuff about PGP, you'll hear people making that comparison. Okay, it is like that.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: It also helps to increase the security of emails. And is it Gnu or is it new gnu?
Chris: Gnu? I'm not sure.
Kayla: GNU PGP.
Chris: I mean, if you ask Giffords that it's probably GNU. If you ask Jiffer's, it's probably new GNU.
Kayla: PGP is a free version of OpenpGP. And some data security experts actually say that you should use PGP all the time in all of your communication because.
Chris: It is a way to maintain regular ass emails.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: How?
Kayla: Gotta make a PGP key. I can do it for you.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: I'll be a little rusty at it, but I can do it for you.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: So. Okay. 3301 has now told everyone their official communication will come with this PGP key. The second image problem. So remember were talking about. Welcome, welcome. Gave us this PGP key message. Second image problems revealed the following message when opened in outguess. And of course, it included the same PGP signature.
Chris: So that's how we know that it's them now.
Kayla: That's how we know that it's them now. This will be important. The key has always been in right in front of your eyes. This isn't the quest for the holy grail. Stop making it more difficult than it is. Good luck, 3301. Also in this subreddit, solvers noticed that the header included a string of mayan numbers, which look like symbols, not arabic numerals. Like, they kind of look like squares and circles and things like that, when the mayan numbers were converted to arabic. Because that's one thing that you should really know about 3301 solvers, and just like Internet treasure hunters and puzzle solvers in general, is that they will take whatever is there and they will run it through every possible scenario.
Chris: Right? Cause there's so many people online with so much free time. For some reason, even if they don't.
Kayla: Have free time, like, you have 15 minutes, you're like, what's that? What's that? Like people that are intent on solving a puzzle will leave no stone unturned.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: So they saw these mayan numbers. They were like, okay, let's convert them to arabic. Solvers then realized that the string of mayan numbers was the key to deciphering the bizarro strings of jumbled text that made up the r a two subreddit post titles.
Chris: So when you say arabic numbers, you're talking about regular ass numbers.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: So when they did that, they realized that the mayan numbers now turned arabic numbers was the key to deciphering all of the encrypted titles in the Reddit that cicada had set up. Does that make sense?
Chris: Yes.
Kayla: Okay, so I talked about the subreddit. All of the titles in the subreddit were a random string of numbers and letters. When the solvers discovered the string of mayan numbers, converted them to Arabic, they realized, oh, this is the code to deciphering what all of these titles are, because they're not just random strings of numbers and letters. They're encrypted.
Chris: Got it.
Kayla: And so we can decipher them basically.
Chris: Like a Dan Brown novel, but online.
Kayla: Yup.
Chris: Because it's just one key, leads you to another key, leads you to another key.
Kayla: Yup.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And it, this is a Dan Brown series. He needs to write a series of novels about this. Are you with me so far?
Chris: Hanging on for dear life.
Kayla: Yeah, same. The, my numbers in the subreddit header were the key that the problem's message referred to. So remember, they're like, the key is right in front of you. That's what they were talking about. That was the key.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: When the subreddit post titles were decrypted using this key, Solvers now had a story on their hands. I won't read the entire story because it's long, but it is a King Arthur story, specifically the lady of the Fountain. And just know that the story was formatted in a very specific way.
Chris: So translate, using this key to translate the posts on Reddit, they figured out that what had been posted on Reddit.
Kayla: Was lines from a story.
Chris: The lady of the Fountain story from King Arthur.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And it was formatted in a specific way.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Okay. So now that the solvers had this story, they could go back to the book code. Remember how I mentioned there was a book code in a string of ratios? The one that they got when they ran the duck throughout. Guess the book cipher worked like this. Each ratio had two numbers, right? Like it was one to 52, two to 77, whatever. The first number in the ratio referred to the line in the story. So remember how I said they were formatted in a specific way?
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: They were basically numbered. So you'd go to like line one and then. Oh, wait, I have an example. The second number referred to the character in that line. So if the first ratio was one to 20, that meant. Look for the 20th character in line one. And I don't mean like story, but character. I mean like number letter space that.
Chris: Right. The 20th object in that line. Yeah.
Kayla: And so on. So they basically take this string of ratios and apply it to the story that they now had. And it would give them a bunch of letters or characters. Do you wanna know what that said when they decoded this book?
Chris: I mean, I don't think we care really.
Kayla: We can skip over it, you know.
Chris: I don't think our listeners wanna know.
Kayla: Once those ratios were decoded, solvers retreated to this message. And this is where it starts to get amazing. It's already amazing. And it just like. It fucking takes off. Call us at telephone number 214-390-9608 holy shit. So clearly this was a telephone number. And what happened when you called the telephone number?
Chris: Yes. What happened?
Kayla: Well, you got this recorded message. Very good. You have done well.
Chris: There are three prime numbers associated with.
Kayla: The original final JPG image.
Chris: 3301 is one of them.
Kayla: You will have to find the other.
Chris: Two, multiply all three of these numbers together and add a.com on the end to find the next step. Good luck. Goodbye.
Kayla: Fuck. Isn't that wonderful?
Chris: Oh my God.
Kayla: Now I want to ask. I want to ask you something. Three prime numbers associated with the first image. The very, very first one that was just black with white text. The starter image, it was signed 3301. So that's the first prime number that we're supposed to find here. What do you think the other two numbers were?
Chris: Or like he said, they were prime, right.
Kayla: There's three prime numbers associated with the first image. How would you go about finding.
Chris: Yeah, I would. I would wait for somebody else to do it and I have no idea.
Kayla: You're thinking too hard.
Chris: I would. Look. What did the message text say? I would have to read. I would love to look at the.
Kayla: You like, read the.
Chris: Reread it.
Kayla: Well, we don't want to do that. So I'm going to just tell you what they did.
Chris: Yeah, reading sucks. Just tell me.
Kayla: Turns out the original image had the dimensions 509 by 503, both of which are prime numbers. So it was just the dimensions.
Chris: I don't know that's necessarily thinking too hard.
Kayla: Like, oh, I. To me, who the hell would have.
Chris: Thought of the dimensions?
Kayla: I would have been running that thing throughout, guess, 700 more times. I'd be like, yeah, I wouldn't look at the dimensions, you know?
Chris: Right. That's what I mean. Yeah.
Kayla: So those are both prime numbers. Multiply 509 by 503 by 3301 and you get 845-145-1270 that's my favorite number. Best number. So what happened when you added a.com to the end of that?
Chris: I don't know. Did it open a portal to another dimension?
Kayla: That maybe. That brings us to the website. Going to the site led to an image of a cicada. They're like very recognizable, iconic logo now. So there was the image of.
Chris: It looks like a moth. Kind of.
Kayla: It looks like a moth, yeah. And along with that image, there was a countdown. Using outguess on the Cicada image produced this message. You have done well to come this far. Patience is a virtue. Check back at 1700 on Monday, 9th January, 2012 utc 3301. And yes, it was signed with PGP. So people had to.
Chris: So it had the stamp.
Kayla: People had to do what they had to do, which meant wait for a while, because remember, this started on the fourth. So people, this is, you know, maybe the fifth or the 6th, they got to this point and now they had to wait until the 9th, until the countdown reached the end.
Chris: They did all that stuff that you just said in two days.
Kayla: This happened extremely fast.
Chris: Holy shit.
Kayla: Just wait till we get to the end of this one.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: What happened next is honestly one of the coolest parts of the whole thing. Like, mwah. Up to this point, people still didn't have the slightest hint as to what 3301 actually was or how many people it actually was. Like, when they give messages, they refer to themselves as a we. But who's to say this isn't just a single rando? Like a smart person put these puzzles together?
Chris: I say we all the time. I mean, you know, it's really just the royal we.
Kayla: Yeah. This next puzzle that I'm about to talk about throws a bit of a wrench into that line of thinking, and for many, unequivocally shows that 3301 is indeed a group. Once the countdown clock hit zero, the website changed. Solvers ran the cicada image now through outguess again, and a new message was given. This time it was a series of numbers that turned out to be coordinates, location coordinates on the world for 14 locations across the globe. A bunch were in the US, but they were also in places like Paris and South Korea. So to get the next clue.
Chris: Oh, my God.
Kayla: You would either have to travel to one of these locations or coordinate with another solver who could travel to one of these locations. Either way, getting the next clue meant getting off your computer and going out into the world.
Chris: Oh, my God.
Kayla: Which also meant that whoever was behind 3301 had to do that exact same thing. They had to go out into the world. And given the widespread nature of the clues, many people believe that this is evidence that 3301 must be a global organization and can't simply just be one person or even a small handful of people. We should note this, I think is important that each coordinate wasn't more than an hour from a major airport. So other solvers have pointed that piece of info to mean that no could still just be one person or a small group of people. That person would have just had to travel around a lot and have a lot of free time and a lot of money.
Chris: Okay. I mean, I was going to make the CIA. I was going to say, that's definitely CIA. Right now that you say that they're all close to the airport. Yeah. That doesn't rule that out. That it could still just be one crazy motherfucker.
Kayla: Yup. Someone Willy Wonka bitch.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Anyway, once solvers began to travel to these locations, they found taped to various phone poles and bike racks, printed out pieces of paper with a cicada image and a QR code. Physical printed paper, like eight and a half by eleven sdhe taped up.
Chris: God bless.
Kayla: Upon scanning the QR codes, two different messages were revealed. I will read them both to you. And both, of course, were signed with the PGP key message number. In 29 volumes, knowledge was once contained. How many lines of the code remained when the mabin. I can't read this word. Mabinogion. I think the mabinogion is like a collection of the earliest british and Brit related, like folk tales.
Chris: Huh?
Kayla: I don't know if that's how you pronounce it, though. Anyway, Mabignon. I don't know. Paused. Go that far in from the beginning and find my first name. Then there was a string of ratios and phrases like the product of the first two primes. After that, the message continued. You've shared too much. At this point, we want the best, not the followers. Thus, the first few there will receive the prize. Good luck. 3301, message two. Read a poem of fading death, named for a king, meant to be read only once and vanish. Alas, it could not remain unseen. Then again, a string of ratios, some phrases, and the message about sharing too much and only wanting the best. So the solvers immediately recognized the series of ratios as book codes with descriptions of each book.
Kayla: The way this played out, this is like, making me emotional. The way this played out. Is it solvers? Because it's amazing. Solvers, typed in keywords, recognized one of the descriptions to be about the poem agrippa. Agrippa? Yeah, Agrippa.
Chris: I actually don't know, but it's italian, I think.
Kayla: The poem Agrippa by William Gibson.
Chris: Oh, just kidding.
Kayla: Well, he didn't create the word agrippa.
Chris: Oh. Oh, okay.
Kayla: He just named his poem this. So then they decoded the book codes and were rewarded with a URL, a string of random numbers and letters, followed by a dot onion.
Chris: A who?
Kayla: A dot onion.
Chris: All right, hold on. Before you explain what the fucking dot onion is, so at this point, people have gone to these physical locations, gotten physical, taped on the wall pieces of paper.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Scanned the codes on them, and the code said, okay, from now only the first person to find the thing.
Kayla: First few.
Chris: The first few to find the thing is gonna get the prize.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: And then where did he get the dot on you? Where did the solvers get the dot on?
Kayla: So in the two messages from the QR codes, there were descriptions of books with book codes.
Chris: Okay, so that.
Kayla: Okay, and so they figured out what book. And specifically one of them is Agrippa by William Gibson.
Chris: Got it.
Kayla: A book code doesn't have to be for a book. It just has to be for, like, a written piece of text. Okay, so.
Chris: And that was the thing that contained a dot onion was.
Kayla: So when they decoded the book codes with. So they had Agrippa. They had the book code. They decoded the book code. And that the num. The characters that they got was the dot onion address. Does that explain? Does that make sense?
Chris: Okay, so they got an address from that, and the address took them to.
Kayla: Dot onion, to blah blah blah onion. A dot onion is like a.com or a.org, but it's also wildly different from those two solvers knew. Now it was time to take to the deep web, because dot onions can only be reached via the Tor network. Tor stands for the onion router. And it's like the way you access the deep or the dark web. And that's just basically parts of the Internet whose contents aren't indexed by, like, Google and similar search engines. So you can't, like, type in cicada. And the only returns you're going to get are things that Google has indexed. Nothing on tor or on the onion network. Onion router gets indexed.
Chris: Right. My understanding is that it's called onion because it's like layers. It's underneath layers of security.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Okay. And then I don't know if you go into this at all, but some of the other things that reside on the dark web, they're all things that basically you don't want people to find out about or know about. So everything from, like, subverting governments to assassinations to illegal pornography and drugs and just all sorts of weird stuff down.
Kayla: There, it's mostly just as of right now, and from my understanding, it's mostly just scammers. It's mostly just people being like, awesome, yeah, give me bitcoin and I'll assassinate whoever you want. And then you're just, bitcoin is gone.
Chris: So that seems like, I don't know, I feel like that you deserve to lose your bitcoin.
Kayla: Okay. But I also have seen, literally on the dark web, I have seen, give me a certain amount of money and I will get you a us passport or us citizenship.
Chris: Okay. Yeah. That's much more serious.
Kayla: Pay money for that.
Chris: That's much more insidious.
Kayla: They would have, like, sometimes you have to, right?
Chris: Yeah. You don't have to assassinate somebody, but.
Kayla: They need a passport or a citizenship or whatever, so. And I. Those are scammers.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Okay. So we're at the dot onion. We're on the dark web. It's also important to mention that there's a certain level of anonymity that can be granted by using Tor, especially if you use a VPN, which basically just, like, lets your computer look like it's accessing the Internet from a different computer. So Tor is beloved by many who value privacy or live in countries where certain uses of the Internet are banned. Or, like my co host mentioned, like, to do crimes, and we can talk more about the deep web. I feel like that's its own topic.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: I also want to mention something about Agrippa, since we talked about that. We mentioned that it's a poem by William Gibson, and he is a prolific cyberpunk author. He's kind of, I think he's basically credited with creating.
Chris: Yeah, he's the father of cyberpunk.
Kayla: He's known as cyberpunk. He coined the term cyberspace. It was like in his first essay. That was before. It was when he wrote the quintessential cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer.
Chris: Neuromancer, right.
Kayla: So I think that's what he's most famous for anyway, agrippa. A book of the dead. That was the full title, published in 1992, was a poem he published on floppy disks. And the text of the poem self destructed after being read for the first time. So you would read it and then it would, like, scramble itself into an undecipherable garble of numbers and letters.
Chris: You read, was there only one copy? How many copies were there?
Kayla: No, like, there were. You would buy your floppy disk. I don't think there was. You'd buy it and then you'd read the poem and then it would disappear.
Chris: Fuck.
Kayla: And like.
Chris: That's amazing.
Kayla: For a while, it was hard to, like, find the text because people wouldn't know to, like, copy it down to, like, post on the Internet. And it was 1992. People weren't even doing that.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: So it was like this ephemeral thing.
Chris: God, that's. That's just such amazing art. Oh, my God. Oh, so. That's so Zen. It's like those mandalas.
Kayla: It gets better.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: The floppy disk was part of an art project, so it was actually embedded in the back of an artist's book containing etchings by artist Dennis Ashbaugh. The art within was treated with some sort of chemical that would make the images inside fade once exposed to sunlight. And the content of the whole art piece just included dealt with the ephemeral nature of memories.
Chris: Oh, my God. Yeah. That's incredible.
Kayla: Yeah. Also, for 20 years, people tried to figure out how the scrambling destruction of the poem worked. They didn't know and couldn't undo it. It took 20 years. It wasn't figured out until 2012 how it was done. So that's just really cool. That's absolutely nothing to do with 3301 outside of, like, being referenced. It's just really fucking cool. So back to the main thread of what 3301 is doing right now. Solvers followed that URL to an onion site and were greeted with the following message. PGP signed, of course, congratulations. Please create a new email address with a public, free web based service, one you've never used before, and enter it below. We recommend you do this whilst you're using tour for anonymity.
Kayla: We will email you a number within the next few days, in the order in which you arrived at this page, once you've received it, come back to this page and append a slash. And then the number you received to this URL. And then they gave an example of how to do that. So it's basically, if it was cicada onion, you would. And you were number seven, you'd go, cicada onion, backslash number seven.
Chris: I want to meet the project manager.
Kayla: I want to, like, kiss their feet.
Chris: Because, like, I can't even plan a party.
Kayla: I know.
Chris: And these people are like, use this code and then go here. And then it all has to line up.
Kayla: I know.
Chris: It's also, we flew everywhere, and I can barely, like, plan my drive to work tomorrow.
Kayla: I know.
Chris: Holy shit.
Kayla: So now the account of what happened in the first 3301 puzzle splits. Because of the warning against sharing, a lot of people consider what happened next to be quote unquote part two, because while all of part one was happening and getting decoded with the entire community in real time, everything that happened after this was on a more, like, personal level and generally only revealed to the public after the fact. So part two of the 2012 puzzle. I know we've gotten pretty technical up until now, so we're about to get more technical.
Chris: Oh, fantastic. That's great. I'm sure that'll retain a lot of listeners.
Kayla: Okay, I'll try to be more descriptive rather than literal here, also, because I only understand about a quarter of what I'm talking about. Solvers. Wait. Yeah. Solvers who found the onion page and entered their new emails early enough, as promised, soon received an email. The email, which said it would only be displayed once, included a code that was encrypted with RSA. Let's talk about RSA for a second.
Chris: Too many acronyms.
Kayla: Do you know anything about RSA?
Chris: No.
Kayla: Okay. RSA is a really cool part of the puzzle. RSA is a crypto system. It stands for revest, Shamir Adelman, the last names of its original designers. RSA is one of the first public key crypto systems and is widely used for secure data transmission. It was published first in 1977. Basically, it works like this. Someone using RSA creates and publishes a public key based on two large prime numbers. The prime numbers are kept secret. Anyone can use the public key to encrypt a message, but only someone with knowledge of the prime numbers can then decode the message.
Chris: I've heard of the prime number thing.
Kayla: Breaking RSA, but you've probably heard about it because of this reason. Breaking RSA encryption is really tough if not impossible. If you don't know the prime numbers that created the key. It's like, yeah, it is so difficult.
Chris: Because aren't they multiplied together? And it's the fact that prime factorization at that scale is basically, like, impossible for conventional computers.
Kayla: Yes, exactly.
Chris: But quantum computers is going to ruin that because it's easy for them.
Kayla: Break. Like we said, breaking RSA is basically impossible. In fact, there's an entire Wikipedia page called the RSA problem dedicated to, like, trying to solve, trying to decrypt RSA without having the primes. So here's how solvers solved this RSA code. If a solver can determine the prime numbers used to encrypt the RSA, then they can use those prime numbers to decrypt the RSA. Since the prime numbers are usually very large, like you mentioned, trying to solve this through factoring or whatever is basically impossible. It would take a way too long, and we'd use all the computers on earth or something like that. That's an exaggeration.
Chris: I don't know if it is.
Kayla: Actually, it is.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Luckily, there are ways to get around this sometimes, not all the time, sometimes. And it's called sieving. Like a sieve. Like a pasta sieve.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Like that. Some solvers specifically cite a program called m sieve. Sieving basically allows non prime numbers to pass through without getting factored, while keeping the prime numbers to test.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: This speeds up the process dramatically. And for these rs eight puzzles, it took about two and a half hours to solve. Using a program like m sieve. M sieve generated a number that allowed the solvers to figure out the key and then decrypt the code.
Chris: Okay, so they basically just use this program called m sieve to decrypt a code that would otherwise be extremely difficult to decrypt. Because of prime numbers.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And they got like. And they got lucky after solving this RSA puzzle, which turned out to be different for each solver. That's right. Each RSA puzzle was personalized because you're supposed to be doing this on your own, of course. Solvers submitted their answers to the onion page and then received another email which contained what's known as the MIDI puzzle. The MIDI puzzle, like the RSA puzzle, is a fan favorite, and you can probably guess that it incorporates a Midi file that is a music file. Solvers received the Midi file, a message telling Solvers to decrypt a hidden message, a warning, again to not collaborate with other solvers, as well as the following clue I'm gonna read the whole clue. It's a little bit long. This song is your own path. Another stop on the road toward enlightenment.
Kayla: Follow it and share not let the chorus be your guide to the depth. Let the priests of the raven of dawn, no longer in deadly black with hoarse note curse the sons of joyous, nor his accepted brethren, whom tyrant he calls free, lay the bound or build the roof, nor pale religious lechery call that virginity that wishes but acts not, for everything that lives is holy. Good luck, 3301.
Chris: Okay, that sounded like some, like, satanic chant shit that the processed church of the final judgment would have said.
Kayla: Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Long story short, Midi is a tool that allows you to encode notes and lengths to create a song. Each solver was again sent a unique personalized puzzle song or MidI file. You can basically convert those midi notes into a readable format. And if you do that, you get a message that includes ck to 3300 one's name, as well as a string of numbered codes. Again, that shows the MiDI file actually has two songs playing at the same time on different channels.
Chris: Whoa.
Kayla: One is intended to lead the solver to the solution, and the other contains the message from free 301, the actual message. So it's like, here's the file that gives you the key on how to solve the second file, which is the actual message.
Chris: It's just a song within a song.
Kayla: Yes. Solvers recognized or figured out that. I know what. Solvers figured out that the chorus. Remember how the satanic chant sent along with the media files was a William Blake poem, and that helped them discover how to untangle the rest of the puzzle. I think it's funny that you said it might be satanist because, like William Blake wrote. Wrote a lot about the devil.
Chris: Did he?
Kayla: He wrote a lot about the devil and religion and stuff like tiger, burning bright in the forest of the night? I think that's about Satan.
Chris: Oh, I think so. I wonder if that's like, they purposely tried to style that chorus after that.
Kayla: Then potentially, basically, solvers could take the William Blake poem chorus, apply it to the first set of numbered codes from the Midi file, and decrypt an Alphabet. So taking the chorus and the code from the Midi, they got an Alphabet. And the Alphabet allowed them to create their own Alphabet, which could then be applied to the second set of numbered codes from the Midi file.
Chris: They better get like a Ferrari or a delicious cake out of this at the end.
Kayla: This led them to 3300 one's final message of this series of clues. And here's a little bit of the leaked Midi because again, each one was.
Chris: Can you play the midi for me?
Kayla: I can play you a midi again, remember? Right, they were multi, all individual. So I'm just gonna play you a little bit of it. It's very long.
Chris: Okay, well, that's very. Oh, you'll probably just play this separate, I guess.
Kayla: You wanna talk? You're allowed.
Chris: It's very creepy sounding. It's like. It's like semi dissonant.
Kayla: Cause it's not a song, it's a code. It's a message. So it doesn't sound like a man.
Chris: That is so weird and cool.
Kayla: Would you like me to read you the final message before solvers moved into the end stage of this puzzle series?
Chris: So this is the message they got out of the songs.
Kayla: This is the message they got out of the song.
Chris: Did they all get the same message?
Kayla: They all got the same message.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: As far as I know.
Chris: Please.
Kayla: Very good. You have proven to be most dedicated to come this far to attain enlightenment. Create a GPG key. GPG is basically a PGP, just like a slightly different program. Create a GPG key for your email address and upload it to the MIT key servers. Then encrypt the following word list using the Cicada 3301 public key. Sign it with your key. Send the armored ciphertext to the gmail address from which you received your numbers. Your words are. And then there is a string of random words like angle, house, basket, basin, camera sale, whatever. Now do you. I know that's a lot. Do you understand what 3301 is asking solvers to do here?
Chris: Not real.
Kayla: I can explain it for you to try and explain it a little further. I'll try. 3301 is asking solvers to create their own private, personal secure key for their email address.
Chris: Okay, so let's say I'm a solver. So what they're doing is basically saying, go create your own kingly, seal your own stamp, okay?
Kayla: For that email. Then you're to upload it to the Mitkey servers.
Chris: So I upload my stamp to the public server that MIT maintains.
Kayla: They were then to encrypt the unique string of words cicada sent them using the key, the PGP key that cicada has created, their personal key.
Chris: Okay, so now they're saying, so now I've done all that and I need to encrypt using that key that I just made. I need to encrypt the words using cicadas key. Oh, using cicadas key. I'm supposed to encrypt the words that they sent me in the song?
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And then they are to email that to 3301. And if 3301 could successfully decrypt the string of words using the key solvers uploaded to MIT's key servers, they had undertaken the task correctly.
Chris: Okay, so if I did all that stuff correctly, then 3301 decrypts it correctly, then I win the Lamborghini, then you.
Kayla: Get Willy Wonka's entire factory. Okay.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: That was a lot, right?
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Okay, we're still not done.
Chris: Oh, my God.
Kayla: But we're gonna kind of, like. We need to start operating on multiple timelines here to truly understand.
Chris: Oh, good. Cause this was too simple. And I was hoping that you would replicate it more by involving time travel.
Kayla: We just have to kind of approach it, not laterally, to understand how 3301 unfolded over the next few years. Okay, please remember that everything we just talked about all happened in 2012 over the course of a single month.
Chris: Oh, my God.
Kayla: One month. One month. That is insane to me. We now need to talk about what happened immediately after the first series of 3301 puzzles, and then we need to talk about the next two series of 3301 puzzles. And then we need to go back and talk about everything we've learned since then. Because while 3301 is still a hell of mystery, we have more information as to what it is now than we did just even, like, two years ago, and certainly more than we did in 2012.
Chris: Oh, my God. Okay, I'm buckled in.
Kayla: Okay, so if you were a solver in 2012 that didn't get through to the end, if you didn't correctly solve the midi puzzle or upload your key or do your encryption correctly, you simply never heard from 3301 personally ever again. Just like anyone else following the puzzles, your next interaction with 3301 would come from a Reddit post from 3301 titled Valete, which means farewell in some language. I used to know what language it is. Maybe it's Latin. I forget. It's either Latin or Portuguese. It means farewell.
Chris: So they just kick all those failed solvers to the curb?
Kayla: Yup. In a single group text.
Chris: Wow.
Kayla: Anyway, in truth 331 fashion, the post was a black image with simple white text reading as hello. We have now found the individuals we sought. Thus, our month long journey ends for now. Thank you for your dedication and effort. If you were unable to complete the test or did not receive an email, do not despair. There will be more opportunities like this one. Thank you all.
Chris: They found the individuals they sought. Yup what does this mean?
Kayla: Nobody knew at the time.
Chris: But do people know now?
Kayla: We're not there yet, are we?
Chris: Oh my God.
Kayla: Now. Okay. There was a lot of disappointment among some solvers, obviously, as many people didn't get through, but some did. And after the final step of the puzzle, a number of supposed 3301 winners went completely dark on the Internet. They stopped participating in chat rooms, they like, dropped off of their social media, etc. Etc. Etcetera, for what the. For many years, no one really knew for sure what happened to solvers who got through to the end. We will talk about this more later, but first, let's talk about something that happened to on February 6, 2012, a month after Cicada posted on February 6, 2012, the same day that the valete Reddit post went up, a guest user submitted an email, the body of an email, to Pastebin.
Kayla: Pastebin is a like, it's a public text storage site and users can basically store plain text there. And this was an interesting tidbit I learned because I knew about pastebin. Apparently, Pastebin grew out of IRC chat rooms dedicated to computing because users needed to share large blocks of code and they couldn't just like type it into IRC or like the chat because it needed like, specific formatting. So Pastebin solved that problem, right? It can also be somewhat anonymous and is often used in the 3301 solving community. The email posted to Pastebin claimed to be a leak. It was supposedly the email solvers received once they passed the final midi puzzle test and properly create their own encryption keys. Yada, yada. No one knew for sure if it was real, but it definitely seemed like it could be.
Kayla: I'm gonna read this email in its entirety for you now.
Chris: Ooh.
Kayla: First we had a little intro from the poster that went like this, and.
Chris: We don't know for sure that this.
Kayla: Is from them, but we imagine we are back in February 6, 2012 and we see this. We do not know that this is real or fake or what the fuck.
Chris: Okay, it's just there.
Kayla: There's no cicada PGP key. It's just they're claiming to be the email that solvers got. Here's the preamble by the poster. 3301 cicada. This has been modified from your original text in order to remove your uber secret identification signature. If you think it belongs to any particular applicant, it does not. And you do know what I mean. You mad, slightly odified content. In attempt to hide identity of leaker, cicada sent different punctuation, sentence structure emails to every receiver so that any leaks can be backtracked to receiver. So essentially this guy's saying, like, you can't track down who did this, because the way cicada send these emails is they personalize the punctuation so that if somebody leaked it, they would know who leaked it. But I've removed all of their formatting, so it's just there's none of that identifying information.
Chris: Yeah, you'd think that Cicada would have known that the people that solved it would have been smart enough to. Well, actually, I guess you don't know. Yeah. How would you know that? That's how they.
Kayla: I don't know.
Chris: I don't know how they. How they identified. I guess maybe you could be in contact with the other solvers.
Kayla: Remind me of this again later, because I know the answer to this. I don't remember if I wrote it down.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: The email then went like this. Side note, it was posted with no punctuation, like the poster mentioned. So any punctuation I throw in has just been added by me for some creative flair. Started like in all caps. Do not share this information. Then, congratulations. Your month of testing has come to an end. Out of the thousands who attempted it, you are one of only a few who have succeeded. There is one last step. Although there will not be any hidden codes or secret messages or physical treasure hunts, this last step is only honesty. We have always been honest with you, and we shall continue to be honest with you, and we expect you to be honest with us in return. You have all wondered who we are, and so we shall now tell you. We are an international group. We have no name.
Kayla: We have no symbol. We have no membership rosters. We do not have a public website, and we do not advertise ourselves. We are a group of individuals who have proven ourselves, much like you have, by completing this recruitment contest. And we are drawn together by common beliefs. A careful reading of the texts used in the contest would have revealed some of these beliefs, that tyranny and oppression of any kind must end. Censorship is wrong and that privacy is an inalienable right. We are not a hacker group, nor are we a wairs group. We do not engage in illegal activity, nor do our members. If you are engaged in illegal activity, we ask that you cease any and all illegal activities or decline membership. At this time, we will not ask questions. If you decline, however, if you lie to us, we will find out.
Kayla: You are undoubtedly wondering what it is that we do. We are much like a think tank in that our primary focus is on researching and developing techniques to aid the ideas we advocate. Liberty, privacy, security. You have undoubtedly heard of a few of our past projects, and if you choose to accept membership, we are happy to have you on board to help with future projects. Please reply to this email with the answers to the next few questions to continue. One, do you believe that every human being has a right to privacy and anonymity and is within their rights to use tools which help obtain and maintain privacy? Cash, strong encryption, anonymity, software, etcetera? Two, do you believe that information should be free? Three, do you believe that censorship harms humanity? We look forward to hearing from you, 3301.
Chris: What the fuck?
Kayla: A lot of people immediately assumed that this message was a fake because after all, 3301 specifically stated multiple times not to trust anything that didn't contain their signature. PGP sick. And this message obviously did nothing. So I wanna ask you now, what do you think of this leaked, quote unquote, leaked email?
Chris: Nick, do I think it's real? Yeah.
Kayla: What do you think?
Chris: How soon after did it?
Kayla: This was posted the same day that Cicada posted their farewell post. It was a month after the game started.
Chris: I'm inclined to say it's fake, but the timing makes me inclined the other way.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: The fact that it was like the same day.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: So I'll see privacy. And then some of the things they said. Well, I guess those are things that you'd totally, like, predictably be like, oh, I guess these guys must be in favor of the stuff that they're doing, right? So that wouldn't be hard to fake. I'm gonna. I guess I'm leaning slightly towards real, but it's really tough to say.
Kayla: I said I was going to give you a hint. I'll go ahead and give you the hint now. We now, many years later, have confirmation as to whether this email is authentic or not, but I'm going to hold off on revealing which one it is. Now, your hint is just that we have confirmation whether it's real or not. I'll tell you later.
Chris: So, like, either way, that's crazy because, like, either somebody. So either it's real and somebody with the authority to say that has said so.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Or it's not real, and also somebody with the authority to say that has said so.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: So either way, somebody with the authority to say whether that was real or not has spoken.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: So that was the end of the 3301 puzzle of 2012. It ended all within a single month at the beginning of the year. And while there were certainly people who didn't make it to the end stage still interested in the entire thing. The Internet largely forgot about 3301 until 2013. I could walk us through the 2013 puzzle in the same level of detail as we walked through 2012, but if I do that, we will literally be here all night. I don't want to downplay the importance of the 2013 puzzle at all because the 2013 puzzle is hella interesting and hella important and we are going to talk in some depth, but I'm going to try to move it a quicker clip than the first one.
Chris: You want t stream what PGP is this time?
Kayla: No, for the purposes of this podcast, we'll just do like an overview and I'm going to include links in the show notes so that our listeners can get a complete walkthrough should they so choose. I highly recommend the uncovering Cicada wiki as a great starting place for all this. I'll talk about them a little bit more later, but if you are interested right now uncovering Cicada Wiki yeah, but.
Chris: Finish listening to this and then go.
Kayla: And then go.
Chris: Wait. And then rate us and then go.
Kayla: And then go. On January 5, 2013, it had been 366 days since the 2012 puzzle went up. No one outside of the solvers who made it all the way through to the end stage and went dark had heard from 3301 in eleven months. And then suddenly an image was posted to two image boards on four chan X and B. Like the first puzzle, it was a black image with white text. Hello again. Our search for intelligent individuals now continues. The first clue is hidden within this image. Find it and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck, 3301. What do you think solvers did next?
Chris: They probably started trying to solve it. By the way, I think I am going to stick with my answer of real because if they are starting all of this on four chan, that means they are looking for additions to their little club from a message board that would be notoriously about don't censor me, bro.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: And so they would basically be pre selecting at least that notion. So that leads me even more to think maybe that it was in fact the real message. But please continue.
Kayla: That's a good thought process. Do you have, you don't have an actual guess for how the solvers started to solve?
Chris: Oh, how they started to solve it? I mean, probably they use that image program, the go.
Kayla: You're exactly right. Okay, solvers ran the image through outguess and were rewarded with a riddle and then a book code. The riddle once cracked led to liber al vel legislation. I don't know if that's how you say it by Mister Alastair Crowley. This book is also known as the book of law.
Chris: Getting back to the satanism here, Alastair.
Kayla: Crowley interestingly enough was not actually a satanist.
Chris: Oh really?
Kayla: I'll explain it in a second.
Chris: Huh?
Kayla: For those interested, this dude was a turn of the century english occultist and philosopher. He was highly involved in western esotericism and philosophy. He was like hella cool but hella scandalous for the time. And many people considered him a satanist but he, I don't think he ever identified as a satanist. He created his own like philosophy, religion and he was that, oh no shit, I don't remember.
Chris: But it was very like occult and dark and weird.
Kayla: Like that's what when we say like esotericism, like we're talking about western occultism.
Chris: Right. Okay.
Kayla: So I'm gonna be sure to link some stuff about Mister Aleister Crowley because he's cool. Anyway, decrypting the book cipher here led to a Dropbox file which I stole. What happens next? I stole a bunch of this for my script. So Dropbox file, it included three files, data, boot and audio. The boot file led to an image which led to a boot sequence like a computer starting up that resulted in a new message and a series of prime numbers. Now let's talk about the audio file in depth a little bit because again it's cool. The audio file contained an audio recording titled the Instar emergence and the artist's name is 3301. It's a simple track mostly consisting of a melody played by a guitar with distortion and it's in the key of DB minor if you're interested in that.
Kayla: It begins with the sound of many cicadas buzzing. There are multiple tempo changes and even though the song itself has been checked for hidden messages like hidden in the notes, hidden in the whatever, dozens of solvers have checked this. There appears to be nothing hidden within the song itself. Let's play some of it. Wanna hear it?
Chris: I love, I love how much like content we have here.
Kayla: I love that just, I love that.
Chris: Yeah. So that sounded just like Diablo theme music. So it's a blizzard video game and.
Kayla: It'S not about cicadas or 3301 as.
Chris: Far as I'm aware. I mean I don't know, somebody Blizzard.
Kayla: Affiliated could have been involved in this, they could have.
Chris: Diablo had secret levels and shit.
Kayla: So, okay, so this was titled the Instar emergence, written by. Performed by 3301.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: There's nothing hidden within like the actual song. But if you looked into the MP3 file, solvers eventually found this message in the hex dump. I'm not even. I'm not gonna try to explain what a hex dump is. Do you know what a hex dump is?
Chris: It sounds like what happens after I have Chipotle.
Kayla: Yeah, you get a curse. Dump. Hex dump. Yeah, it's code. The code.
Chris: Sure. Look under the hood again.
Kayla: Look under the hood. And they found this message. The instar emergence parable 159-527-7641 like the instar tunneling to the surface, we must shed our own circumferences, find the divinity within and emerge.
Chris: What?
Kayla: The song is 167 seconds long, a prime number. And it's a reversal of the MP3 file name, which was 761, which is also prime.
Chris: So are we multiplying these together again?
Kayla: Not yet. It's just an interesting thing to note.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: By this .3301 solvers were pretty organized, particularly the serious ones. There were groups formed on IRC with specific subgroups dedicated to solving pieces of the puzzle. That happened in the first one too. Like, specific groups joining together.
Chris: Oh, cool. They were like little, like clans that were just kind of like, oh, that's awesome.
Kayla: Up until you couldn't anymore. So for this one, there were specific subgroups. One was working on the boot file, one was working on the data file, and I. Someone was working on the audio file. And while people were working on these things, another solver happened to, like, kind of randomly discover a Twitter account that was definitely 3301 affiliated. Its name was a palindromic prime number. It's long, so I can't. I'm not gonna say all the numbers, you know. A palindrome prime number is prime.
Chris: Forward or backward prime number that reads forward and backward the same.
Kayla: Can you explain a prime number?
Chris: A prime number is a number that has no factors other than itself and one. So, for example, three is divisible by itself, three and also by one, because one times three is three. And three times one is three. But those are the only two factors it has. Whereas ten is not a prime number because it's divisible by. Yes, itself. And 110 times one is ten. But it's also divisible by two because two times five is ten. And it's divisible by five because five times two is ten.
Kayla: Can you tell me if, like, are prime numbers considered, like, special?
Chris: Definitely.
Kayla: Okay. So clearly, Cicada 3301 also believes they're special.
Chris: Prime numbers have a bit of a special place in mathematics and philosophy and that kind of thing for reasons that are probably outside of the scope of this episode. But just as an example, there are some legitimate steady search for extraterrestrial intelligence scientists that think that, for example, communicating prime numbers is one way we would be able to tell another advanced alien species that we are intelligent and vice versa.
Kayla: Damn.
Chris: Yeah. So they're hella important.
Kayla: Important to cicada as well. I mean, their name is a prime 3301. So this Twitter account that a solver happened to find only tweeted codes, like, it existed for a certain amount of time. Only tweeted codes and stopped tweeting on January 8, the three files and the tweets left solvers stumped for hours, which was new.
Chris: Oh, man.
Kayla: I know.
Chris: Hours. That's forever.
Kayla: For, like, a full day. Solvers literally didn't know what to do. And that was kind of a first. Like, people had, you know, been pretty at a pace, and now there was like a. Oh, shit. We don't know what to do here. And like most puzzles, it finally and almost randomly got solved. A user ran the MP3 file through XoR, which I wish I could explain what that is to you, but I honestly still don't understand. I think it has something to do with binary code. I don't know. There's a.
Chris: What the hell?
Kayla: You should YouTube it. There's some very helpful YouTube tutorials and walkthroughs. And later on I'm gonna name some names, and one of the folks I'm gonna name has a really great walkthrough of it.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: I just still don't quite understand it.
Chris: Anyway, my brain's full, though.
Kayla: A solver xor ed the file and found something really fucking cool. Using the tweeted messages, the solver xored the MP3 file and uncovered a jpeg, which is now known. It's an image. And that JPEG file is now known as the gematria primus.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And basically it's a rune table that identifies 29 runes. They're associated letters and then associated values. So, like fucking viking runes, like runes?
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Kayla: It's like, specifically, they were based on anglo saxon runes. And if you applied this table to various different texts, it would reveal interesting numbers often.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Solvers soon used outguess on the image because. Of course.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: And they got another message from 3301.
Chris: Of course they did.
Kayla: 3301 then sent solvers again to the deep web, an onion site which turned out to only be accessible via Telnet, not web browsers.
Chris: Quick question before you tell me what Telnet is. Were all of these messages in part two in 2013? Did they all have the signature? Did they all have the Cicadas?
Kayla: Yes, all of these had the PGP.
Chris: So that's how people. So when they first got it, they were like, is this real? And then it had the signature. They must have been like, oh, game off.
Kayla: Exactly.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Exactly. Everything that comes from them has their PGP signature.
Chris: Got it.
Kayla: So they go to this new onion site, and it says, web browsers are useless here. So that meant that they could not use a web browser to access the onion if they wanted to continue, which meant they had to telnet in. Do you remember Telnet?
Chris: So I think I understand what Telnet is. Barely.
Kayla: I mean, I explain it. You don't have to, like, guess, okay, please. And I might talk about it in a future episode, but I.
Chris: What?
Kayla: Like, remember, like, the muds on Telnet?
Chris: Oh, that's okay. Yeah. Muds were handled there.
Kayla: Muds are still there, right?
Chris: Right.
Kayla: Telnet is hard to explain, especially when you don't quite understand it. So we'll just say it's a different way of interacting with the Internet or networks of any kind. And instead of, like, being able to use a web browser, it opens up, like, a command system where you type in commands and then it does stuff.
Chris: So if you think, I know. We all think of the Internet as, like, web pages, right? But really what the Internet is information. So it's information that sits over there and over there. And there's this whole set of protocols or rules about the exchange of information from one place to another. Now, web browsers are the most common way that a human interacts with that information. So it's think of it, a web browser as kind of like, I don't know, a light for a book in a dark room. I guess that's not the best example. But a web browser allows you to access that information, and it turns it into this well known format, which is a web page. And that's what most of that stuff is, at least most of the stuff we interact with online.
Chris: But that doesn't mean that's the only way to access information that's sitting on Bob's or Alice's servers or computers. There's other ways to access and interact with that information, and one of those is Telnet. So for web browsers. So it would be like Internet Explorer as a web browser, or chrome or Firefox and Telnet, like you said, command line. That would be like, if you remember the old DOS. Before windows, there was DOS. That's an example of a command line. Instead of navigating via graphics and clicking and pointing with your mouse, you actually have to type commands out and say, go to this program and open this program or change directory or whatever.
Kayla: Thank you.
Chris: You're welcome.
Kayla: No, that was a really good description. Better than I had. It's a different way.
Chris: Well, it is.
Kayla: So solvers then used Telnet to access this onion site, and after some more digging around, they were led to, of course, a second onion address. And this one just said, patience is a virtue. Solvers waited and were eventually told that they had everything that they needed to continue. They already had everything they needed to continue. What's the problem?
Chris: How were they told that?
Kayla: From the. From the second website that they went to, there was, like, a message.
Chris: Oh, so they said, patience is a virtue, but you already have everything you need.
Kayla: They said, patience is a virtue. And then the next time the website updated, it has this message.
Chris: Okay, so it updated later.
Kayla: You already have everything you need. What followed was a series of solvers digging around in the clues that they already had, pinging the site's ip address and listening to the reply, decoding those pings to find another message, and finally, another onion site that led them to coordinates. Again, people had to go out into the world.
Chris: Oh, my God.
Kayla: This time, the posters had phone numbers on them. It's difficult to describe what happened next in simple terms, so I'm kind of just gonna skip over it.
Chris: They didn't just call the numbers.
Kayla: Well, just know that the phone numbers directed people to use the runes, and the next puzzle required people to work together. Again, solvers were directed.
Chris: The viking runes.
Kayla: Yes, the viking runes. Again, solvers were directed to another onion site, and thus ends the public part of the puzzle. Everything that happened next relies on leaks and wisdom from folks who said they reached the end game themselves.
Chris: Okay, so there was another turning point where Cicada was like, no more. No more group work. Now you're only individual, and you're supposed to hide it. So the only reason we know about stuff from then on is by the people that were supposedly there telling us about it.
Kayla: But we're gonna go ahead and hold off on talking about the 2013 endgame, because it's important to point out four things. One, the 2013 puzzle was definitely solved. Two, the 2013 puzzle introduced the usage of the gematria Primus and using runes to solve 3301 puzzles. Three, the usage of prime numbers and palindromic prime numbers kind of exploded in this puzzle. Four, there was some information included in this puzzle that didn't seem to necessarily advance the plot, like the song. With those things in mind, we're gonna come back to the 2013 endgame later on, and now we're gonna briefly touch on the third puzzle, and then we can move on to, like, talk about the community a little bit and the endgame and the rest of the stuff we're gonna talk about. But now we're gonna talk about the third puzzle.
Chris: Has there been only three puzzles?
Kayla: You'll see.
Chris: Oh, my God.
Kayla: Okay, so when it comes to the third puzzle in Cicada 3301, I can bring in a little bit of my own experience here because I briefly participated in the puzzle myself. You remember? Do you not remember?
Chris: Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, I remember now. Yeah. But still, that's crazy.
Kayla: Remember how I, like, didn't sleep for a couple days, so just waiting for cicada messages.
Chris: You joined a cult, right?
Kayla: Yeah, yeah. Or the. Just weird. In late 2013, when I discovered the existence of 3301, I went on a deep dive into both previous puzzles, and I just. I got really excited about the prospect of a third puzzle. It just was really cool. It just was. That's all I have to say about that.
Chris: Fascinating. I know now, I mean, was this, like, over the course of a month, like the first two were, or the third puzzle? Yeah.
Kayla: Oh, we'll get to it.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: The first, the second puzzle, I believe, took longer than a month.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: So knowing that if a third puzzle were to happen, that it would drop in early January, I, before early January, spent a few weeks teaching myself how to use outguess PGP, Telnet, a few other things that I don't quite remember. I joined the IRC channels and chats. Oh, I learned how to go on the deep web. I don't remember if that was.
Chris: Oh, yeah, I remember all that.
Kayla: I don't remember if the deep web was specifically for this or if I used that to get on Silk Road. They were kind of both at the same time. Right, but we'll talk about Silk Road in another episode.
Chris: Right? Yeah. That was when you were, like, trying to buy hits on people.
Kayla: Yeah, it didn't work, unfortunately, because you're still here.
Chris: Oh.
Kayla: I joined the IRC channels and chats. I learned how to use the tour. I scoured the wiki, and literally, when it was like the day people thought the puzzle was gonna drop. Like, when I stayed up for two straight days, it wasn't because I was, like, stuck solving the puzzles, because I was just sitting there waiting for them to drop the puzzle. Like, literally, I didn't sleep.
Chris: Oh, my God.
Kayla: And I was not the only one because, like, all of cicada Internet was just, like, abuzz with excitement.
Chris: And after, like, cicadas, do they buzz? What do they do? Do they buzz?
Kayla: They, like, do that hummy thing.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: So it was all a hum with Ecada.
Kayla: Yeah. So finally, after two days, a third puzzle dropped. And I honestly can't. I just. I can't accurately describe what the excitement felt like. It was really fucking cool.
Chris: Was it, like, Christmas morning for nerds?
Kayla: Yeah. Hello, nerds. Uber ultra nerds. So this first message from the third puzzle said, hello, epiphany is upon you. Your pilgrimage has begun. Enlightenment awaits. Good luck, 3301. I think you'll probably notice that, like, while 3301 always had a mysterious and sometimes vaguely spiritual or esoteric bent, it ramped up kind of quickly through the 2012 puzzle and then, like, even more so through 2013, and then kind of carried through to the 2014. I just want to point that out because it becomes even more interesting later. Anyway, when this image, which actually, instead of being announced on four chan, it was announced on their twitter, when the image on Twitter was put through, outguess were given the following message, and I totally did this part.
Chris: Oh, did you really? Yourself? Oh, that's so cool.
Kayla: Quote, the work of a private man. He wished to transcend. He trusted himself to produce from within. And then it was followed by a book code. What do you think that's talking about? Want me to read it again?
Chris: Yeah, read it again.
Kayla: The work of a private man who wished to transcend. He trusted himself to produce from within, and then followed by a book code. So it's a book or a story.
Chris: Is it about the first solvers? The Solvers of the first puzzle? No, I have no idea.
Kayla: So thanks to that hint, it was quickly discovered. Sorry. That the book in question was self reliance and other essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Oh, I have absolutely no idea if I guessed that at all when this happened.
Chris: Yeah, I'm illiterate, so same. Yeah.
Kayla: So, upon decoding the book cipher, solvers were taken to the first onion site of 2014. And this onion site consisted of a collage. So it was an image that was. It was four paintings done by William Blake, just all kind of in a collage. And if you'll remember, we talked about William Blake in the 2012 puzzle, because he wrote a poem. There was, like, a poem that they referenced for William Blake.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: It wasn't tiger, running bright. I just said that one. So there's some, like, motifs, there's some themes, there's some recurrences here. This image was also, of course, run through outguess, and solvers were presented with another RSA puzzle to solve. And of course, no one had the key to decrypt with. And the way that this one was solved is different than the way the previous ones had been solved, because this was a much bigger problem and required a lot more manpower, computer power than the first RSA had.
Chris: Okay. And then RSA, just to refresh me, that's like the factoring primes thing.
Kayla: Yes. That's where it's, like, it's encrypted by two giant, large prime numbers that. Those are the secret. So unless you can figure out the prime numbers, you're not going to decrypt the message. Right. Remember, there's an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the issue of decrypting RSA, and it's called the RSA problem. So it's really fucking hard.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: So keep this in mind. When we talk about how this RSA puzzle was solved. The way it was solved was essentially, solvers tried a bunch of different ways to try and find the key. And when none of them worked, a group of solvers got together and miraculously managed to succeed successfully. Brute force. The RSA key.
Chris: I thought that wasn't possible.
Kayla: They did it how they fucking did it. Well, a little bit of luck and a lot of really hard work like this is an insane feat. If you'll remember how we originally talked about RSA.
Chris: I know, that's why it's safe, because you're not supposed to be able to do that.
Kayla: These people managed to do the impossible and do it awesomely, decrypting the RSA. Oh, yeah, I. Okay. I don't want to spoil exactly how it was done here.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: We will talk a little bit more about how this puzzle was solved when we get into some things later. Just know that it was, like, a really impressive feat. So the solvers then decrypted the RSA, and that led to another onion site that, again, displayed the message of patience is a virtue.
Chris: So keys and to keys again.
Kayla: And you'll notice patience is a virtue has come up multiple times.
Chris: Oh, yeah, they said that with the other. Yeah, yeah.
Kayla: Following the message of patience as a virtue, there was a string of numbers. And I remember this part clear as day because it was so fucking cool. So I at least got through to this part. There was a string of numbers and people were like, we don't know what this is. And then after.
Chris: And that was that how they talked? Okay.
Kayla: After, like, some time of observation, people realized the string of numbers is growing. And I remember when people figured that out, it was. I didn't figure that out. I was just there. It was so cool. So the string of numbers.
Chris: So were you just, like, maintaining contact with this community on what? Like on Reddit?
Kayla: On IRC.
Chris: Oh, sorry.
Kayla: IRC is instant messaging, a group instant message.
Chris: Like a chat client.
Kayla: Yeah, chat room.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: So, yeah, so they realized the string of numbers was growing and it was growing every few minutes, and it did this for 23 hours. So we had to wait a day in order to get the full message. But we saw it unfolding in front of our eyes.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: It was really cool.
Chris: Interesting.
Kayla: Then why they chose to do it that way. We can talk about it, but let's talk about it in a second.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Then some things happened that are hard to explain, so I'm gonna kind of skip over them. Solvers applied some crypto magic to the result of that string of numbers.
Chris: I love that we've been, like, doing this crazy explanations, and here you're too hard to explain, and we've already talked about RSA and PGP and.
Kayla: Okay, so does the phrase shamar's secret sharing scheme mean anything to you?
Chris: No, I'm just saying that, like, yeah, it's even more difficult to explain. Even more esoteric, even more crazy than the stuff we've already done.
Kayla: Yes. It's just, it gets way more, like, technical and, like, visual, and it's just, it would be hella boring. Listen to me explain it. So we're just gonna be like, some things happened and then they figured it out. So the solvers, this is where I dropped out. Solvers applied some crypto magic to the result of that string of numbers and obtained three cryptic images. And that is how the 3301 solver community finally got its hands one of the more fascinating artifacts bestowed by 3301. The liber primus.
Chris: The bridger Brubus, the liber primus gesundite.
Kayla: It's first book in Latin, I think. Okay, Libra priest, I am not really sure how to describe the Libra. Primus, primus. So bear with me. We're not really going to go through the specifics on how the rest of the 2013 puzzle went. We're just going to talk a little bit about what the Libra Primus is rather than, like, all the solving that went into the rest of the puzzle, because it's honestly less interesting than what we're about to talk about. The Libra Primus, which was first introduced as three images and slowly was revealed to solvers bit by bit as they continued working on the 2014 puzzle. So they got the first three images, and then as the rest of the puzzle unfolded, we slowly got more and more images from the libra primus. Okay, so the libra primus.
Chris: Is this, like, a book that exists? Are you about to tell me?
Kayla: The Libra Primus is a nearly 60 page book of runes that, since 2014, remains largely undeciphered to this day. To this day.
Chris: So there's just a book of, like, frickin like, viking runes? That's just. Nobody knows what it says, and it's.
Kayla: We know what some of the pages say, but we don't know.
Chris: But not all.
Kayla: We don't know what a vast majority.
Chris: Is there, like, one person that's, like, secretly solved all of it, do you think? Or is it.
Kayla: I do not believe that at all.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Because of how difficult the Libra primus has proven to be.
Chris: And that was 2014. So it's been five years.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: Jesus.
Kayla: So some of it's deciphering because some pages have been deciphered, and some pages were necessary to be deciphered for this puzzle. Some of the deciphering was related to the gematria primus. You remember when we talked about that? It was.
Chris: Oh, yeah. I thought those were the runes.
Kayla: Yeah, those are the runes from 2013. So he kind of got. Remember I mentioned before, there was elements introduced in this puzzle that would be important in the next puzzle. We got introduced to the concept of runes and encryption in the previous puzzle.
Chris: Did they have this shit planned out ahead?
Kayla: I don't know.
Chris: Or were they just building off of past successes?
Kayla: I don't know. So we had the gematria primus, and then the Libra primus just was kind of this whole nother level. I will show you some pics, and then I will describe them for our listeners. All right, so the libra primus. Here are some pictures. So that's clearly the title page, right.
Chris: It's a blank, white page with the words libra primus.
Kayla: The pages generally look more like this. So for our listeners, the pages for the Libra primus are generally white with black runic writing, red accents and stylistic decorative flourishes, and sometimes even, like, true images. Like, if you'll notice in this one, there's little cicadas on the sides.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, it looks like basically like a movie prop from Lord of the Rings.
Kayla: It very much looks like that. That's a really good example. I said that it looks more like it's modeled after, like, ancient texts or like medieval bibles and that kind of thing, where they have like the.
Chris: Big giant, flourishy first letter and then.
Kayla: Like drawings in the margins.
Chris: Yeah, yeah, it has that feel too.
Kayla: Looks like that. While the Libra Primus remains largely undeciphered, a lot of really intense work went into and has gone into translating it. And the information contained within what we know of the Libra primus leans heavily into the mysticism, esotericism, spiritual aspects only touched upon in 3301 puzzles in the past.
Chris: So we're, like, going into the occult here now with this stuff, I will.
Kayla: Neither confirm nor deny. So, yeah. While 3301 in the past seemed largely concerned with cybersecurity and privacy and freedom of information and those kinds of very grounded things, the 2014 puzzle ended up taking a different turn. One of the first pages decoded in the Libra primus by solvers reads as a warning. Believe nothing from this book. Accept what you know to be true. Test the knowledge. Find your truth, experience your death. Do not edit or change this book or the message contained within either the words or their numbers. For all is sacred.
Chris: What the hell?
Kayla: Some other passages that manage to be decipher read like some wisdom. The primes are sacred. The totient function is sacred. All things should be encrypted. So that's a passage. Another welcome pilgrim to the great journey toward the end of all things. It is not an easy trip, but for those who find their way here, it is a necessary one. Along the way, you will find an end to all struggle and suffering, your innocence, your illusions, your certainty, and your reality. Ultimately, you will discover an end to self.
Chris: This went way beyond the scope of, like, an Internet puzzle.
Kayla: I know.
Chris: So I think they let it get to their heads. I think they had so much success with the first two puzzles that they were like, you know what? We might be God. Let's just pretend we're God.
Kayla: So that's your guess?
Chris: That's my guess, yeah.
Kayla: Well, we can circle back to that later.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: There were a lot of references to pilgrims and pilgrimage and holiness, and they talked about the instar emergence again, which, if you'll remember, was the name of the song, the guitar song.
Chris: Oh, right.
Kayla: And I don't know if we talked about this, but an instar is basically like, it's a bug stage. It's like when a bug is becoming an adult. So, like a cicada in star emergence. So I talked a lot about that. They talked about, like, the nature of truth and self reliance, and then it kind of, like, got in a very, like, Zen Buddhism area. There was a handful of cones, which a cone is. I didn't know the correct definition until now. It is a story, dialogue, or question or statement which is used in Zen practice to provoke the great doubt, quote unquote, and to practice or test a student's progress in Zen. So oftentimes they're kind of like. Like, I think a good. Like a trope that's often used.
Kayla: It's like, it's a very logical story that proves that logic is kind of absurd and meaningless.
Chris: Awesome.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: So this is all stuff from the libra primus.
Kayla: You're saying this is all contained within the libra primus?
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Yes. Which, to all of our best knowledge is a book entirely written by the 3301 organization just for this puzzle.
Chris: Sure. So, I mean, yeah.
Kayla: I'm gonna go ahead and read you a cone so we can all get a sense of.
Chris: Is it an ice cream cone?
Kayla: Ice cream koan. Oh, so no. From the libra primus. A cone. During a lesson, the master explained the I. The I is the voice of the circumference, he said. When asked by a student to explain what he meant, the master said, it is a voice inside your head. I don't have a voice in my head, thought the student, and he raised his hand to tell the master. The master stopped the student and said, the voice that just said, you have no voice in your head is the I. And the students were enlightened.
Chris: Deep. So that reminds me of my two favorite jokes.
Kayla: I don't want to hear your two favorite jokes. I hate them. I hate them.
Chris: What did the Zen buddhist monk say to the hot dog vendor?
Kayla: Am I participating in this? What did he say?
Chris: Make me one with everything. And then my personal favorite, actually, that I don't even really like that one that much. That's like a warm up.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: My favorite one is, what did the Zen buddhist master say when he saw the broken lamp?
Kayla: What?
Chris: This lamp is broken?
Kayla: God, I hate that joke so much. You would definitely not be accepted into 3301. They do not make jokes like that.
Chris: I don't think I want to be in 3301. They seem a little tryhard.
Kayla: How dare you?
Chris: They are the very dictionary definition of tryhard?
Kayla: No.
Chris: And they, like, hang out on four chan. Sorry.
Kayla: Well, they moved to Twitter, like, all the cool kids.
Chris: Oh, yeah, Twitter. Twitter's like the platform of pristine awesomeness.
Kayla: Twitter's, like the least cyberpunk thing to exist. So. Okay. There is still a lot of debate about the Libra primus, what it is, if it's actually a puzzle itself or just kind of some sort of red herring or additional material. There's questions about why it bends so heavily into the spiritualism aspect. But what's important to know is that the Libra primus is essentially the last thing 3301 gave to the world before disappearing.
Chris: Fucked.
Kayla: No, disappearing.
Chris: That's the last thing.
Kayla: Do you remember? Spoiler alert for usual suspects. It's the fucking end of the usual suspects right here.
Chris: Right. Oh, my God. So how are people deciphering this? I don't understand.
Kayla: Let's talk about it. I mean, okay, I guess not entirely disappearing, but for all intents and purposes, 3301 has remained silent since then. There have been no more puzzles. 2014 was the last puzzle that they released as of 2019.
Chris: Do you think they've had secret communication with individuals secretly?
Kayla: I would ask you to hold that question.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Cicada three.
Chris: I'm holding many questions right now. It's like they're gonna collapse. I feel like I'm holding just like a chair with a. On top of a plate on top of a.
Kayla: That is the nature of learning about this.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: So this group has been silent for five years.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: So that means are you gonna be.
Chris: Silent for five years?
Kayla: After the Libra primus was discovered, nothing happened.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: Some solvers claimed to have received an email from 3301 similar to the winners of the previous two puzzles. Others believed that. But it's important to note, no viable, no believable email was ever leaked for either the 2013 or the 2014.
Chris: Oh, so there was a leaked email?
Kayla: Maybe there's a leaked email from potentially from the first 120 1220 13 to 2014. There are no even close to being believed. Maybe leaks, leaked emails. Correct. Okay, some people were like, yeah, we totally won. Some other people believe that maybe the Libra primus was kind of like a consolation prize for those who didn't make it through, like I said, but at least I can look at this. Some people thought that's what it sounds.
Chris: Like when you don't win.
Kayla: Yeah. Some people thought that the puzzle was over. Some thought that there was something were missing in the Libra primus. And solvers were just simply stuck.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: In January 15. Then solvers waited to see if another puzzle would drop. It did not.
Chris: Wow. Solvers wondered if he must have been tripping out.
Kayla: Yeah. Oh, it was so disappointing because I was. I kind of picked it back up again. Like, I was into this for a while, and I waited for a 2015 puzzle, and it just never happened.
Chris: Oh, man. Is that like, finding out Santa Claus isn't real?
Kayla: It's really upsetting. And, like, every. I'm not gonna lie. And it hasn't been, you know, a lifetime, but every year since then, like, the beginning of January, I'm kind of.
Chris: Like, yeah, keep one eye out. Yeah, yeah, I get that because I.
Kayla: Want them to come back.
Chris: I think they're just waiting for people to solve the leave for Primus altogether.
Kayla: That's your. That's your guess?
Chris: Yes.
Kayla: It's a fine guess. Okay, so no puzzle 2015. Solvers wondered if 3301 had just found all the members that they needed or if they, as an organization, had simply given up on that search for new members. Still others, like my co host here, insisted that the Libra Primus just needed to be solved in its entirety in order to complete the 2014 puzzle and move on through the next stages. In fact, the only public message anyone received from 3301 in 2015 was in July when they posted a PGP signed message and they clarified that they were absolutely not affiliated with a series of cyber attacks on Planned Parenthood carried out by a group claiming to be 3301.
Chris: Holy crap.
Kayla: So in, like, the summer of 2015, a group claiming to be 3301, like, was cyber attacking Planned Parenthood to the point that it was such a problem that the real 3301 came out and were like, that's not us. We don't do illegal activities. We don't. They're not a part of it.
Chris: Why would a group claim to be them just because they're like, throw a dart at the board at something famous?
Kayla: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And later, that group that did the attacks admitted that they weren't and they were just sad losers. They were not 301 affiliated.
Chris: Yeah, I guess if your group name is sad losers, you'd probably want to find a different one.
Kayla: Yeah. So again, in January 2016, Oliver's hoped against hope for a new puzzle. And still nothing. I guess I keep doing this. Not entirely nothing. We did get a confirmed image from 3301 that seemed to indicate that, yes, actually solvers needed to continue working on the Libra primus boom. You called it.
Chris: I did.
Kayla: The 2014 puzzle hadn't been completed, and the undeciphered runic pages were the way forward. 3301 also, again, warned solvers to stay away from fakes and trolls and anything not PGP signed by them, because by this point, the Internet was, like, overrun with trolls and fakes and imitators. And so they had to really. Cause it kind of. It didn't go mainstream, but it went, like, Internet mainstream in 2014. And so since then, it just kind of was like a free for all of people being like, I'm Cicada. So the PGP signature became even.
Chris: It's like the end of Spartacus. It's almost, to me, it's almost like that. I don't know that necessarily takes away from it because it almost makes it, like, when the real. Because they have a way of identifying themselves as real with the PGP signature.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: The fact that there's this, like, you know, giant maelstrom of fake, you know, imposter, troll, whatever.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Almost like, serves to, like, help keep them hidden in a weird way. Right. So that when something actually does happen that's real, it's like, oh, my God, this is the real thing.
Kayla: Yeah, but it's always been disappointing. It's always just been like, nope, weren't involved in that, which I'm glad they weren't, but it's just kind of like, no, we don't. Anything to add besides not involved or keep working on the thing. That's it.
Chris: Well, maybe people just need to get their acts together and do the Libra Primus and then something will happen because it's so easy.
Kayla: It's not. It's really hard.
Chris: Just give it to me and I'll just.
Kayla: No.
Chris: Bust it out in an afternoon.
Kayla: We don't need to give it to you because there is still a dedicated group of solvers trying to crack the.
Chris: Code, but solvers who aren't me.
Kayla: Oh, my God. You don't know anything about anything. You would fail. Sorry, I. Wow.
Chris: Next time on cult or just weird divorce court.
Kayla: So, like, you would do. Many, many people abandoned the search because it was too hard. Some are frustrated by the. I'm sorry.
Chris: Yeah, good. Burn there and follow up with it. I'm sorry. Nice.
Kayla: I feel bad now. So some are frustrated by the difficulty. They're kind of like, what the fuck? Like, this should be solvable. It's not a puzzle if it's literally unsolvable. So some people are kind of like, well, there's also. There's some very valid criticisms, I think, where it's like, up until this point, this has been about something very specific and very methodical and very logical. And then you're now kind of throwing at us something that kind of flies in the face of all that. It's not lateral, it's not logical. It's not figureoutable in the way that the other ones have been. It's more kind of like stabbing around in the dark. So it just feels like.
Chris: So it's like less of a puzzle and more of, I don't know, just.
Kayla: Like an overwhelm of hunt or.
Chris: Overwhelm.
Kayla: Yeah. I'm not trying to criticize the Libra primus. I think. I personally think it's super cool, but I understand frustration some people experienced.
Chris: Right. Are we going to talk about how people have solved the bits that they have solved?
Kayla: I mean, I don't think I talk about specific hows, but basically, I think I mentioned there was a way people figured out a way to use the gematria primus, the original rune decoder, to decode some of these pages, but it doesn't work for all of them.
Chris: Okay. And people don't know what to use for the.
Kayla: Correct.
Chris: Not all of them that.
Kayla: Okay, correct. So while some are frustrated by the difficulty, some are just, like I said, turned off by the tonal shift. The libra primus seemed to bring with it all of the esotericism and the mysticism.
Chris: Oh, that's right. It had a. Yeah, theme sort of shifted a little bit.
Kayla: A little, yeah. Some people believe it's pointless to keep trying because they think that 3301 has disbanded. More on this later. Some people think 3301 wanted to just be done with the puzzles entirely, so they handed us an impossible task and I walked away, which I kind of think is a cool idea. Here you go.
Chris: That's a pretty cool way to quit. I mean. Cause you could just be like, hey, we're done. But instead you're like, hey, all you have to do is solve this thing and then we'll totally make another one. And then, you know, you're basically still.
Kayla: Done and you drive your entire fan base into insanity.
Chris: Sounds like that's already happened.
Kayla: Yeah. The last time 3301 has communicated with us publicly was in April 2017. And it was simply a message that said, beware false paths. Always verify PGP signature from seven. A 35090 f 3301. It's been more than two years since then and nothing. So now I kind of want to backtrack a little bit and talk about a few things. Cause we've put off a lot. And I feel like now is the time to address it all good?
Chris: Cause the table, chair and plate are all coming crashing down in my brain.
Kayla: Let's, let's talk about the end stages. Let's talk about the end stage of 2012 and 2013. Mostly because when I was involved in 3301, there was absolutely no confirmed public information about what happened to people after they were successfully recruited by 3301. Yeah, that is no longer the case, my friend. Okay, then I'd like to talk a little bit more about the community itself and then we can go ahead and wrap. But first the end stage. Okay, so the 2012 puzzle, remember how we talked about that leaked email that solvers received? Yeah, turns out that leaked email was real as shit.
Chris: Ooh, I said it was real.
Kayla: Oh, you totally called it.
Chris: Hell yeah.
Kayla: So in 2015, a gentleman by the name of Marcus Wehner. It's either way or Wanner. I think it's wannerhead. Thats the only time.
Chris: Maybe its Vona.
Kayla: Marcus Wanner was interviewed for a Rolling Stone story about 3301. Who was this guy? In 2012, Marcus was a 15 year old homeschooled, computer smart kid who had most of his online activity heavily monitored by his parents. But when they finally caved and bought him his own laptop, Marcus saw the first 3301 image and went down the rabbit hole. Marcus Wanner.
Chris: What was I doing when I was 15?
Kayla: Like not even driving a car.
Chris: Oh my God.
Kayla: Marcus is a confirmed solver of the 2012 puzzle.
Chris: Oh my God. So he made it to the end.
Kayla: He made it to the end. And after a few years of silence, he finally decided to open up about what happened at the end of 2012.
Chris: Oh my God. Tell me right now.
Kayla: Tell me we're gonna slow roll it. No, he actually, in his decision to like come out, he cited 3300 and one's own self avowed dedication to the sharing of free information and the pursuit of the truth. So in the article, as well as on YouTube, Marcus explained what happened after he received that leaked invitation email. Okay, the Rolling Stone article is great, and I, you have like, everybody listening has to check it out. You're not listening. You should also check it out. But you can't hear me say that. The Rolling Stone article gives us an.
Chris: You don't know that we should invest in some technology to beam our podcast directly to people's brains without their consent. Go ahead.
Kayla: So yeah, the Rolling Stone article gives you this insider's perspective on how some people like Marcus solved it. There's other solvers, but we're going to pick up the story. After Marcus received his invitation email, he submitted his answers to the bizarre questions. You remember we talked about how there was, like. The first question was believing that everyone has a right to privacy. Marcus answered yes. The second question was believing in the freedom of information. He said yes. And for the third one, yes to believing that censorship harms humanity. But he did include a caveat that is pretty smart. He included a caveat that pointed out the conflicting ideals between believing censorship should be resisted and also requiring solvers from refraining from illegal activity. So he. He was honest. He, like, was like, because that was. I'm not gonna stop sharing copyrighted material.
Chris: Right. My next question was gonna be like, can't you just lie to those answers? Like, can't you just be like, oh.
Kayla: Don'T forget they said, if you lie to us, we will find out. And I believe them.
Chris: And then what? I can't do their fun little puzzle next year?
Kayla: Well, in caught, think about what these people could, like, do to you.
Chris: They don't seem like the retaliatory type.
Kayla: But they could be if they wanted.
Chris: I don't want to retaliate against this podcast. So we can't call them a cult then. Oh, boy. Well, I guess that wraps up this episode. Just weird. Talk to you next week. Hopefully.
Kayla: 3300 one's probably at least the least litigious gripe we're gonna go after, right?
Chris: That's true.
Kayla: So he sent his answers, and then on February 28, Marcus got an email from 3301, an official welcome email. Hello. The next step is finally here. Marcus and other successful solvers were directed to a secret site on the dark web, as well as given a username and password. So this is basically a text based forum where users could talk to each other. Where the solvers of 3301 could talk to each other. It appeared.
Chris: Yeah, I know.
Kayla: My God. The most exclusive, right?
Chris: Like, the coolest of the cool kids clubs to have ever cooled.
Kayla: I know. And this kid was 15.
Chris: Oh, man.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: It was probably all other 15 year olds.
Kayla: You're probably not wrong. It appeared at the time that there were about 20 other 2012 solvers. Like, 20 people in total solved it. And in this forum, they could talk to each other. And there was also a few other, like, established 3301 folks in there. Like elders, they're often referred to in the Rolling Stone article.
Chris: What the. Who are these people?
Kayla: According to the 3301 elders, their origin story went like, this isn't confirmed. This is just what 3301 has said to solvers. This isn't quoted. This is just a paraphrase. 3301 was started by a group of friends who cared deeply about anonymity, privacy, and encryption. They wanted to pool their skills in order to make software that aligned with those ideals. The original group began recruiting more and more friends, kind of like organically. And just through that organic growth, it became an international group, though it never was affiliated with any one government or any other group organization.
Chris: It was just like a Facebook group. It was just like some friends.
Kayla: Some friends. Marcus says that 3301 reminded him of the Boy scout.
Chris: Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking.
Kayla: Well, their goals and ideals were, like, respectable and honorable, and they were about helping other people, and it just. And they're like, don't do illegal stuff. Like, they had to. Code, I get.
Chris: And then there's the well known 3301 merit badge Sash.
Kayla: I have that one.
Chris: And the camping trips, the Jamboree 301 jamboree that they have in Irvine.
Kayla: Man. So they aren't the Boy scouts. But Marcus thought they were like the Boy scouts. And true to their name, 3301 leaned heavily into the cicada metaphor. Remember how we talked about cicadas only emerging every 13 or 17 years, which are prime number years? That irregular emergence pattern ends up obscuring their emergence pattern from predators. So predators can't predict when are they gonna. Yeah, because it's like this weird.
Chris: It's this weird, like, prime weird cycle. Yeah.
Kayla: So cicadas are cool. 300 one's cool. Synergy.
Chris: So do we have to wait another 13 or 17 years for them to come back?
Kayla: Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. Marcus and the other solvers were told that 3301 was basically a group of decentralized broods that each had their own. They were called. So it's like a sect, but they called it a brood.
Chris: I rest my try hard case.
Kayla: Shut the fuck up. Each of these broods had their own specialty or project, and this recent puzzle had been an attempt specifically to recruit coders and cryptographers. Like, it was talked about how the people who joined 3301 didn't necessarily, like, they all had to prove themselves, but they didn't necessarily go through puzzles like this. The puzzles were specifically designed to recruit a specific skill set that they were missing.
Chris: I see. So it was like super friends, group of, let's just talk and stuff. And then they said, we need some hackers up in here, so why don't we make a puzzle that will attract hackers?
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: It seems to me that they do have that skill set. If they're the ones making the puzzle.
Kayla: They need more people for whatever their goals are.
Chris: So they got the one dude or dudette that was like a super hacker. And we're like, hey, we need you to make this. Like, have you seen the game? Yeah, like that. But as a recruiting tool. Can you do that? Oh, and we need you to come in on Saturday and Sunday, too. Ew.
Kayla: That's the worst part.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Either way, they needed more.
Chris: They needed more hackers and cryptographers. Hacker Mac Hackerson's. Okay.
Kayla: So it was now up to Marcus and his brood to create a software that aligned with 3301 stated goals. So now that they're part of it, they have to kind of like, get to work.
Chris: What does create a software mean? That's the most general.
Kayla: It's like, grill me a cheese, create me a software.
Chris: Yeah. It's like something that, like, my grandmother would ask to do.
Kayla: You should make a software.
Chris: You know what you should do?
Kayla: Well, that's what they did, though. They immediately got to work on making a software. And this.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: This brood, after, you know, much discussion, decided to jump on an idea they had that's called cakes. It's not about cake.
Chris: Are you. Are you having a stroke? I don't wanna.
Kayla: Cakes stands for something. Cicada.
Chris: Is it a lie?
Kayla: I'll tell you at the end of this. Cicada Anonymous key escrow systems. Cakes was designed to protect whistleblowers and would trigger the automatic publication of sensitive data online if and when the whistleblower was indisposed for a designated period of time. Like if they got killed or thrown in jail. It was kind because of cakes. It decentivized trying to fuck with whistleblowers.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: Because if you kill the whistleblower to keep them from blowing the whistle, the info is going to get out there anyway because they've already put it into cakes.
Chris: Well, why not just put the info out there? Is it because the whistleblowers want the leverage or.
Kayla: I think because the whistle. Yeah, I don't know. We can talk about it in a second. Because it's a good idea. I just can't tell you why it's a good idea.
Chris: It's the leverage thing. Oh, okay. Sorry. Keep going.
Kayla: We'll talk about why it's a good idea.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Marcus and his brood worked on cakes for months with, along with 3301 elders. They would kind of drop in, comment, give their opinions, their guidance. And these solvers, they did a lot of really great work. But kind of unsurprisingly, members of the brood began to fade away.
Chris: Yeah, like, I assume they weren't getting paid.
Kayla: No cakes. Like, working on cakes and being a part of 3301 is hard work, and it essentially ended up being, like, a second job. And so for some of these people, they weren't 15 year old kids. Like, they were people with day jobs, and they had family. So by the end of 2012, Marcus was actually the only member of his brood still working on the project, and.
Chris: He was just solo coating this cake.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: Or should I say baking cakes?
Kayla: Coating. God. So at a certain point, like, the dude just got stuck. He was like, I can't. I can't do this anymore myself. This is supposed to be a collaborative project, and he's doing it alone.
Chris: Right? I mean, software is that way.
Kayla: Right? And so he. He specifically went to his elders and, like, asked them, pleaded with them to please recruit some new members to help me, and they confirmed. They're like, oh, don't worry. We're. We're gonna do that anyway. It's happening shortly. And then that's when the 2013 puzzle went live.
Chris: So, Marcus, the 2013 puzzle was just to help Marcus make a cake.
Kayla: What Cicada is saying is that, yes, he asked, but were gonna do this anyway. We are aware of the problem. We know we need more people. They're good to go.
Chris: Yeah. Employee turnover, man. It's rough.
Kayla: So Marcus kind of went, okay, cool. We're gonna get some remembers. I'm gonna go ahead and pause the work that I'm doing on cakes and just. I'm gonna wait for new recruits. Like, we need fresh eyes. We need fresh blood. And while we know how the 2013 puzzle went, ultimately no new recruits arrived afterwards.
Chris: What?
Kayla: As far as Markus could tell, even though solvers believed they reached the end of the puzzle, and some even claimed to have received their welcome email, no one knew arrived at the dark web message site that Marcus had been invited to. And from that point on, he received very little communication from 3301 itself. And then in March 2013, the dark web messaging site was shut down without any notice.
Chris: What the hell?
Kayla: And that was the last involvement Marcus Wehner had with 3301.
Chris: Why? What. What happened?
Kayla: Now, before we finish out his story, let's talk about the end stage of the 2013 puzzle. So, puzzle number two, there's not a whole lot confirmed about the end stage here because, again, like, there weren't any email leaks. There wasn't the same kind of buzz around it, but there are confirmed winners. And, in fact, I was able to talk to a 2013 3301 puzzle winner who goes by the handle Knox Populi on the Internet.
Chris: Wait, I, as in you, Kayla?
Kayla: I myself, Kayla.
Chris: Whoa.
Kayla: Yeah. That was amazing. Yeah, yeah. Especially because, like, let me tell you a little bit about Nox Populi. Nox Populi is an incredible resource when it comes to 3301. They have a great YouTube channel that takes viewers through the puzzles step by step. And there's even a video with Marcus Wanner explaining what happened after he solved the 2012 puzzle. Because Knox and Marcus are friends.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: I highly recommend that if you have any interest in the subject, you should go check out the videos. They're just. They're really informative and they. Even if it feels like you have a hard time understanding this stuff, Knox explains it very well.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And you can also, I just want to be sure to say you can also find Knox Populi on Twitter and Reddit talking about all things 3301.
Chris: Okay, I'm gonna have to go follow that after this.
Kayla: And Nox Populi was kind enough to chat with me on Twitter and answered all of my 3301 related questions. So were messaging.
Chris: Dude, that's so cool.
Kayla: That was great. So a huge thank you to Knox for humoring me. I really appreciate it. I couldn't have done this episode justice without your input. Anyway, I asked Knox how they came across the 3301 puzzles, and Knox didn't participate in 2012. But after hearing about that puzzle from a friend, Marcus Knox decided to participate in 2013. They ended up being one of the five or so confirmed successful solvers in 2013. So remember how difficult the 2013 puzzle was? We talked about it. It was hard. Probably harder than the first one.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: Well, this just kind of tells you the skill level that Knox is dealing in. Anyway, Knox, of course, was super excited to complete the 2013 puzzle and especially after hearing about the experiences that Marcus had in 3301, like, he was awaiting these cool tasks.
Chris: So when he was talking to Marcus, was Marcus like, hey, yeah, we're trying to recruit more people because I'm hurting.
Kayla: I don't know.
Chris: And he was like, I'll come help.
Kayla: I can ask. I think it was more just the puzzle was really cool.
Chris: He was just intrigued by the puzzle.
Kayla: Yeah. But unfortunately, it was a huge bummer for Knox when those tasks never came.
Chris: So he won.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: But then.
Kayla: Got his welcome email.
Chris: Got his welcome email, answered yes to everything.
Kayla: I don't know if they forget if he was supposed to answer the questions, but I'm not sure. But, yeah, I just got.
Chris: But then nothing after that.
Kayla: Oh, actually it was different. I think. I think I talk more about it, but we'll see. But, yeah, no invitation to a dark web, no task assigning, nothing like that. Knox, here we go. Knox does say that they received an invitation from 3301 to join like the 2012 puzzle winners did, but that email differed, and again, that there was no invitation and it was just kind of a message to be patient, which cicada likes to ask you to do.
Chris: Cicada.
Kayla: Then in 2013, in May 2013, 3301 went completely dark and Knox never heard from them again. If you remember, this is around the same time the website that Marcus Wanner had been invited to. It's kind of the same time that it got taken down. So Knox says that after that 2013 winners got together to compare their experiences and everyone had the same thing happen to them. So that's how we know that they're are winners. Because people got together and had these same experiences as winners and could confirm.
Chris: It all with each other, cross reference with each other. Right. That's interesting. It's almost like. It's almost like the cicada elders have just sort of created a little sub community that seems like it's a community unto themselves, but is not necessarily part of the. Yeah, right. It's like all these winners are like they're in this interesting, like, special circle.
Kayla: It's vampires, and they're vampire thralls.
Chris: Right, right, exactly.
Kayla: We all want to be the vampire. Some of us are just thralls, like me.
Chris: I mean, it sounds like some of the thralls may have superseded their vampire overlords, though, based on the skill with which they were able to decipher some of these puzzles.
Kayla: Taru Knox also points out that the pool of 2013 winners was four times smaller than the pool of the 2012 winners.
Chris: So there's only five people.
Kayla: There's only five people. There's only five confirmed. And as far as we know, there's only five winners. So Knox just kind of wonders if the reason why 3301 essentially stopped, no more puzzles, no more communication, is that they just didn't get the numbers that they hoped for.
Chris: Huh.
Kayla: A decent guess is that it didn't get popular enough to get the numbers they hoped. It didn't hit the mainstream till 2014 was on the way, which I think.
Chris: Is, I guess I don't know if I buy that one. The reason why is that I'm not sure you need 20 people to make a project like cakes. Now, granted, I've only worked on software projects, gaming, not, you know, encryption and security and whatever cakes is doing, but it seems like six people should be enough to build something like that.
Kayla: I don't know.
Chris: Especially if there's six people that were dedicated enough to solve a puzzle like 3301, and five of them solved it a year after the initial puzzle. Those are pretty dedicated, intelligent folks.
Kayla: Do you want to guess how many people it took to break the RSA?
Chris: The RSA was in puzzle number two. It was in 2013.
Kayla: The RSA that I'm talking about is the one from 2014 where it was like a huge puzzle.
Chris: Three.
Kayla: Big deal.
Chris: Yeah, I don't know, but I'm assuming it was like thousands.
Kayla: We'll get to it. So I asked Knox for further speculation on why 3301 seems to disappeared. And Knox specifically points to just the massive undertaking the labor primus presents to solvers. The third puzzle remains unsolved, largely because it's unlike anything they've ever done before and is a massive encrypted text. I have a lot of unconfirmed theories as to why this is the case, but I think it was because they wanted to stop doing them the puzzles and wanted to leave off on something that would be worked on or talked about for years to come. So it made it significantly more complicated and time consuming than anything they've done before.
Chris: So his theory is the. Like they pieced out with an all but unsolvable puzzle.
Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. He nock says, main reason they're a baller, main reason they've stopped, is that the 2014 one is still unsolved. Whether it was made unsolvable. So they'd have that excused is up to anyone, though.
Chris: That makes sense. I mean, I guess that's what I would do.
Kayla: If you wanted to stop doing the most talked about Internet puzzle, you would leave off on a mic drop, like, good luck, bitches.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah, that's what I would do. That's clearly something that I'm capable of.
Kayla: Are you Cicada 3301?
Chris: Yep, you got me.
Kayla: Oh, my God. We unmasked me, guys.
Chris: You unmasked me. No, but that. I mean, so. So he doesn't know then if, or he's not speculating whether that's what they did. Just that they're related somehow. Just that the difficulty of the final puzzle and the fact that they're gone are related. Either one.
Kayla: Yes. Well, it's one.
Chris: Cause the other.
Kayla: Either. Either way. Cicada 3301 has not given us a new puzzle since 2014.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Because the 2014 puzzle remains unsolved, whether it is supposed to remain unsolved so they don't have to do it again, or if it's just so fucking hard that people haven't been able to do it yet, and they're just, like, waiting.
Chris: In the wings, ready to drop another puzzle as soon as people are done.
Kayla: Yeah, but they just can't because we haven't finished. So that's how the end stage of 2013 went. And we know what happened with 2014. That's what we've been talking about. And so that's why in 2015, Marcus Wehner. Remember we talked about him being one of the winners of 2012.
Chris: Marcus winner.
Kayla: Marcus winner decided to come forward. I'm going to read to you a little bit, just like a passage from the Rolling Stone article. So this is all a quote, and then he talks in it. So I'll say, quote again, enough time. Quote. 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, quote, it's time to go public, he tells me, in his dorm at Virginia Tech, where he's studying computer science. I think he is not studying computer science anymore. I think he has graduated. I think this article came out in 2015. Or he is the face behind Cicada 3301. Maybe he's actually Cicada. Oh, look. The cicada is coming from inside the house.
Chris: You should probably get an exterminator if that's the case.
Kayla: Ew. In addition to sharing his story, Markus has decided to take the code that he has been working on for cakes and hide it somewhere in the deep web where others might find it and finish what his brood started. So he's like, I can't do this myself, so I'm gonna hide it out there, and if somebody can figure it out, have at it.
Chris: So he just, like, wrapped up his code in a little lockbox and, like, placed it under a bridge somewhere in the deep web.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: I love that decision.
Chris: Great.
Kayla: Tor Eklund, an attorney with the whistleblowers Defense League who has represented several high profile hacktivist, says such software would be extremely valuable because it gives leverage and protection to the whistleblower. There's nothing like this out there, ever. The faithful scout Markus says the competition 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.
Chris: This whole thing is really bizarre.
Kayla: I know. I know.
Chris: What is going on here?
Kayla: I know. I don't really know. So we're actually. We're almost done.
Chris: Wait, did you just pick up a script for, like, a mission impossible? Is that what you did?
Kayla: Oh, my God. If Mission Impossible did a movie based.
Chris: On Cicada 3301, it would be well, within, like, that would be exactly what. Or at least actually with the first one was like, now it's mostly action.
Kayla: I would have still. I would kill myself with excitement.
Chris: Yeah, it would be amazing. And, you know, don't kill yourself. But I won't, I guess, if you have to.
Kayla: Well, it's up to mission impossible now, right?
Chris: Well, don't kill my wife. Tom Cruise.
Kayla: Or do. Tom Cruise or do. You're allowed.
Chris: Yeah, if it's Tom Cruise, then yeah, that's fine.
Kayla: So, okay, I said we're almost done, but before we get to our question, we need to talk about the actual community involved in 3301. Yeah, obviously, we only know so much about the reclusive 3301 members themselves. So instead we're going to talk about the two communities of 3301 followers. Okay, now I'm the one saying that there are two communities, and Knox kind of also hinted at this idea in our discussion. I personally, in my mind, I divide up the 3301 community into the. What I call the solvers and theorists. Now, there's definitely some overlap there. Like, you can be a solver and a theorist and a solver. So let's go ahead and clarify.
Chris: Would that be a solverist or a theosolve?
Kayla: It would be neither of those things, because those were terrible words. Let me clarify my terms, not yours, because yours were bad. When I talk about the solver community, I'm talking about the group of people who approach 3301, like Knox or Marcus Wanner. They're trying to solve the puzzle as presented. Solvers in my mind include everyone who worked on any or all the puzzles, as well as fans and those interested, like myself, who maybe lack the technical know how to actually participate in the solving, but closely follow or followed the developments.
Chris: Got it.
Kayla: Solvers can definitely speculate about three or one unknowns, but they generally treat the text presented very strictly. Solvers don't engage in creating or participating in fake three through one puzzles, and they kind of avoid the wilder, more speculative, more out there theories about three nature, which we'll get into. I won't say there's no toxicity present in this community, but generally this is a group of talented, curious people willing to collaborate with each other. Cool theorists, on the other hand, I'll use this phrase generally to refer to folks who found out about 3301 more late in the game, think, like, post 2014, and are generally more interested in the wild, crazy, creepy conspiracies, about 3301, than they are in the actual puzzles or confirmed info we actually have.
Chris: Got it. So that places us squarely in that camp.
Kayla: We can talk about it in a second. Theorists aren't necessarily bad, but we will be talking about some toxicity that largely stems from this community in particular.
Chris: Okay, so that's definitely us, then.
Kayla: If it's toxic, yeah, hella toxic. So, I mentioned that I briefly tried my hand at the 2014 puzzle, and once the runes showed up, I peaced out. But I didn't peace out. I just stopped. I just gave up the ghost. I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'll watch. But that didn't mean that I couldn't sit on, like, the IRC channels and, like, talk to the solvers and watch the solvers and observe and, you know, offer suggestions or thoughts as I could. I don't really have any, like, particular memories that I want to point to. I just want to point out that, like, largely what I remember is smart people doing smart things and talking to each other and trying to figure this out.
Kayla: Like, there were definitely folks in there that were, on my level, that sometimes made less than helpful comments. But by and large, the solver community, from my experience, is pretty cool. And, in fact, when I asked Knox about his favorite three through zero one puzzle, this was the answer. I personally think breaking RSA was the most interesting step of the cicada puzzles because of the collaborative work it took to do it. At one point, we'd had over 100 people donating time from 300 cpu cores to factor the numbers needed to find a solution. It was an amazing community moment. Now, earlier, you guessed like, a thousand.
Chris: Yeah, which.
Kayla: Fuck you for guessing that a hundred people is still an insane dude.
Chris: Factoring primes is no joke.
Kayla: I know, but if you said, like, 20, then it would have made the hundred sound.
Chris: Listen, man, back when I was in college, I did SETI at home. Do you know what Seti at home is?
Kayla: I know what SETI at home is, but you should explain it.
Chris: SETI at home. Oh, my God. Okay, we might want to cut this whole thing, because it's gonna be long. SETI at home is. SETI is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. And SETI at home is basically, there's so much data to sift through from all of the radio telescopes that are pointing into space that they said, hey, what if we just, like, crowdsource it was actually. I think it was the first or one of the first distributed computing projects. And they basically said, okay, we'll just send out all these little packets of data for computers to process, doing something called a fast furrier transform for those of you that are in the know. And then you send the data packets back, and they piece them back together like a puzzle. And then they.
Chris: And then they're able to kind of look at that and say, is there a signal in this piece of data? So it was you at home with your home PC, helping out in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. And the reason I brought it up is because when I was in college, I did this. I did study at home, and I logged in my account on, like, five or so. I would just literally, I would walk around campus going to computer labs. God, this is nerdy.
Kayla: I don't know. It's not. It's amazing.
Chris: It's horrific. And I would install study at home, and I would log in with my account, and I would have those computers also processed so that I would be, like, the number one, because there was, like, leaderboards and stuff. Yeah.
Kayla: I have a huge question for you.
Chris: Anyway, I did that.
Kayla: Why don't we do this now?
Chris: Yeah, why don't we do study at home?
Kayla: Yeah, why aren't we doing it?
Chris: I don't know. We could.
Kayla: I just feel like that's a big oversight in our lives.
Chris: Yeah. I mean, there's a bunch of distributed. I mean, I think you can, like, get paid for that kind of thing now. Like, I think that's.
Kayla: People just pay to use your computer?
Chris: Well, it's processing power. Well, no, the idea is that it's. It only uses it during the downtime.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: So it's like, when you're using your computer, it's. It's dormant or whatever, and then when you're not, it's using that, essentially, like, your computer sitting there doing nothing. So that uses a.
Kayla: Well, no one was paying these hundred people to crack to brute force the RSA solution. Yeah, but literally, like, the community got this organized, like, just through IRC chats to get 100 people.
Chris: That's crazy.
Kayla: These computers. To break this one piece of this puzzle.
Chris: That is crazy.
Kayla: So I, like, you know, a lot of people think, and I am definitely one of these people, think about, like, oh, the coolest part of the puzzle is, you know, when the coordinates show up and people have to, like, fly around or whatever.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: But then Knox pointed out that, like, this is just as impressive, if not more.
Chris: Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think the reason that the flying around thing resonates is just because it's like, it makes that jump into physical space, right. And that's just kind of like, ooh. But. But clearly the more impressive thing is the RSA breaking.
Kayla: Yeah, it's insane. So nok says, you know, this was an amazing community moment, and that's largely how I feel about my experience in the community as well. Even if there are, you know, of course there's gonna be some bad apples or whatever, but the collaborative element to the solver community is honestly, like, it's inspiring. It's. It's just strangers working together to solve an unknown puzzle. Like, nobody knows really what's at the end of it. They're just working together just because they enjoy it.
Chris: Right. Just because it's fun to solve stuff.
Kayla: Right. And it's fun to solve stuff together. And, like, that particularly just makes me so happy. And the fact that there's still a solver community, people trying to work on this five years later, it's just so cool.
Chris: Do they have meetups? Do they have, like, bar cicada?
Kayla: Oh, I don't know.
Chris: I bet they do.
Kayla: I know a lot of people who are involved in Cicada would prefer to not be involved, like, publicly. Like, there's another.
Chris: Yeah, I guess there's that anonymity sort of thing to it.
Kayla: There's another in the Rolling Stone article that Marcus Wanner was interviewed it for. There was another 2012 winner that was interviewed for it as well, but only opted to go with their, like, online name. Didn't want to be public. Yeah. So I don't know if meetups are in the cards.
Chris: Well, Knox, I'll buy you beer if you're interested.
Kayla: Knox, we will definitely buy you a beer. Knox also had this to say about the community. They're an amazing group of incredibly talented individuals from around the world that helped me grow in knowledge about cryptography over the years. So let's just. I don't know.
Chris: Aww.
Kayla: I think it's nice. I talked to a few other 3301 solvers about their experiences. Reddit user Chipper 120575 agreed to chat with me and I was extremely lucky that he did. Chipper or Ray as he goes by on discord. Rey with two y's.
Chris: Isn't that Rey?
Kayla: Rey. Rey heard about 3301 from one of NOC's popularized videos and Ray is an active participant in the third puzzle even still.
Chris: So he's doing the rune book thing, the Libra Primus.
Kayla: He personally has translated multiple pages of the Libra primus into numbers. He personally, whoa.
Chris: That's hardcore.
Kayla: Currently, right now, he's working on a translation program for the pages to kind of just have that happen and is hoping to have it finished within the coming months. So that's like something.
Chris: Is he gonna ping you? I will ask, yeah, ask him so that we can like make an update on our, you know, 13th episode or whatever it is.
Kayla: Rey says right now that the 3301 solvent community is, quote, basically dead. Only a few active solvers remain, about 50 or so. We need new eyes and more people at the moment. But fair warning, I want to encourage anyone who's listening to this, who's interested to, if you want to get involved. But fair warning, if you're about to go jump into the solving community, it is just good etiquette to please do your research first and do your homework first and get yourself up to speed because jumping in and offering solutions that folks have exhausted months or years ago isn't really going to do anybody any good. Like, I'm not trying to be insulted, if you want to get involved now, you should. And also, in order to get involved, you need to kind of go back and look at everything that's already happened.
Chris: The reason I'm snickering is because that's actually like, that's not just with cicada. That's, that's like a software programming thing. It's generally like, how did somebody put it? When I was taking a class on this, it was like, ask good questions. And if you're asking a good question, it means that you've tried to figure out the answer yourself or you've looked up other things that have other people's work or other things that you've tried, you've basically gone through and you're not asking. Basically what you're doing is you're not asking somebody to google it for you.
Kayla: Right, right.
Chris: And I find that very common stack overflow questions, that happens all the time. I think in a lot of cases they actually go too far. I always feel like the first reply to a stack overflow question is always like, this is a terrible question, you're an idiot. And then there's like, you have to go down a couple and somebody actually answers it. But the point is, in the programming community, it's generally considered etiquette to try to ask good questions.
Kayla: Good to know. Reddit user what is Cicada 18 also agreed to chat with me. And while what is Cicada 18 joined the solver community in about 2016. Well, after the 2014 puzzle went kind of cold, this person scoured the Internet to get up to speed and still follows new posts with new ideas. They've also tried to solve the Libra Primus through various efforts, but again, it proves to be very tricky. What is? Cicada 18 believes that the community is split into two groups. Different than my groups, but still two groups, newcomers who are intrigued and old hats who are annoyed. I understand the feelings of both. The newcomers want to help and learn more. The old hats have seen thousands of suggestions fail, and thousands of people come and ask questions only to go dark and never contribute.
Kayla: I think we're broken and we need to find a way to incorporate new people while continuing the advanced efforts.
Chris: Man, that is quite. That's its own little puzzle, man.
Kayla: Yes. Yeah. How do we solve this many years later, with new people coming in and out and people churning constantly? There's also still this core group of people that have probably been around since the beginning.
Chris: Right? And how do they be open to newcomers enough that newcomers will want to stick around while they're so jaded? Because they have to sift through probably thousands of newcomers that say stuff that they've already heard and then peace out without saying anything else. Damn.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: Wow.
Kayla: I also want to mention the good that the 3301 community has done outside of the actual goals of Cicada 3301 itself.
Chris: But they do other stuff. No, just like, habitat for Humanity.
Kayla: Hold up. No habitat for Humanity.
Chris: I don't know.
Kayla: This is not team building. Everyone I talked to that has participated in the solver community has learned valuable new skills or discovered passionate hobbies as a result of interacting with the puzzles, myself included. Like, this helped me, Cicada 30, one helped me get one of the best scripts I've ever written. Written. It gave me some really cool hobbies for a little bit. Cicada 3301 is one of the reasons I figured out how to go on the deep web and figured out how to use a VPN and how to use tor and like, yeah, I messed around with outguess and Telnet and that kind of thing, but it did make me really interested in cryptography, and I just, I know more about. I'm no expert, but I just. I know a little bit more about all this.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, nobody's an expert. Right? It's just what you're willing to learn. And, like, it's really cool that you know some of that stuff. Like, that's. That's some. Those are some powerful skills.
Kayla: Yeah. And it's not just me. Knox told me that, quote, I was a complete beginner at crypto when I started the Cicada puzzles in 2013, and now I use it frequently and have become involved in the larger crypto privacy community, including doing a talk at the crypto and privacy village last year at Defcon.
Chris: Oh, dude. So for those of you that don't know, Defcon is the.
Kayla: It's the world's largest and longest running hacking conference.
Chris: Yeah. And so we. I used to work on a team that are sort of. Was like, our sister team was the hacking team, or I guess the anti hacking team at my former company at Blizzard. I think I can say that. Fuck it. I don't care anyway. And so every year, they would send a few guys and they would tell some really crazy stories. Like, you had to be really careful, even just traveling.
Kayla: Oh, sure.
Chris: When you were like. So I think it was in Vegas a couple times that they went, are.
Kayla: You allowed to tell this story?
Chris: Well, I'll tell a sanitized version, but just, like, you can't. You have to be careful. Like, you can't leave your computer unattended, even for a second. You can't have, like, you need to not have your phone even be on. I think when you're walking around, like, you need to basically have just the tightest operational security just walking around the conference just because it's. The world's hackers are there, and it may not even be malicious. It's just. That's what they do.
Kayla: And just, like, think about that. Think about the level of people that are at Defcon and that are presenting at Defcon.
Chris: Oh, yeah.
Kayla: And Knox Populi, who was a beginner at Crypto in 2013 when he started this first puzzle, is now giving talks there.
Chris: Yeah, well, I mean, if somebody's an expert on 3301, I get it, but it wasn't.
Kayla: It wasn't a 3301 talk. It was a talk about crypto. Just. It was a gen. It was at least I think. Knox, correct me if I'm wrong, it was like a talk more generally about, like, crypto and crypto privacy. Wow. Not 3301 specifically.
Chris: Okay, well, that's crazy then. That's really impressive.
Kayla: This person also was one of the 2013 winners and was a beginner at the start of it. That's so cool.
Chris: That's actually kind of inspiring. Cause it's like, it really lends credence to that whole it's what you're willing to learn thing.
Kayla: Marcus Wehnerhead, literally until the moment he started working on 3301. Any time he spent on the Internet was heavily guarded by his parents, right? And it was just, he got this laptop and then was like, luckily he was able to spend some time, like, not, you know, being watched by his parents. And that's how he solved the first puzzle.
Chris: Mister and misses Wanner, if you're listening, you know, we're not trying to judge you on your parenting, but, yeah, it's impressive that what your son has done.
Kayla: What is Cicada 18? Another one of the Reddit users I was talking to said following Cicada made me buy multiple books on encryption. It honestly got me interested in the entire topic. Nobody's going to hire me to write their security software anytime soon, but it has truly sparred a great interest of mine. Again, super cool that this person now has an entire hobby just based off learning about 3301.
Chris: Yeah, that's awesome.
Kayla: And Ray told me I learned two new programming languages, built a special computer just so I could run Linux, and learned a crap ton about cryptography and sound design. The sound design actually got me into music. He would later tell me that working on the 3301 song puzzles led to him producing his own trap music. And that interest has him maybe considering even switching college majors from electrical engineering to sound engineering.
Chris: Hell, yeah. Please fight for the good guys, Raydhe. Please.
Kayla: And literally, like, was working on some of the song puzzles and then realized, okay, there's nothing here, but I really like this. I'm gonna make my own music. Like, that's what I'm talking about with this, like, cicada doing more than just being a cool puzzle. Like, and these are just three people. Like, these are just three people that I've talked to and then myself. So of the, like, thousands of people that have been involved, like, I can't even. I can't think too hard about the amount of people that have, like, probably maybe they've changed careers or, like, have built software or have, like, taught their.
Chris: Kids something hard part of their life or something.
Kayla: Like, it just makes me really happy to think about.
Chris: And it's. It's like a, it's like a crypto space program.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: It's like this crazy goal that you want to kind of do it just to do it right just because it's there. And then along the way, you know, you get velcro and astronaut ice cream, which are the only two things that the space program has produced. Well, they're the best things. Tang is gross.
Kayla: Tang is gross. But they invented it.
Chris: Sure.
Kayla: But also, astronaut ice cream is gross.
Chris: Astronaut ice cream is great. You shut your mouth.
Kayla: It's disgusting.
Chris: A little, but it's like, horrifying. You know, just forget it. Let's move on.
Kayla: Fine. I want to point out that most of my info here, I think I mentioned it up top. I don't remember easily the best 3301 resource out there, the one that I used when I was briefly dabbling in 3301, the place where I found out about the IRC chats where I got most of my info, is from the uncovering cicada wiki. The uncovering cicada wiki is just this huge. And you should check it out at some point because it's a massive wiki and it's just this huge labor of love undertaken by prominent members of the solver community. And it's just like, it's the hub of 3301 solving activity. It's like people have blogs on there and people post updates and there's lists of IRC channels that you can join and just frequently asked questions.
Kayla: And there's my favorite resource, and not only because it was greatly useful for this, but just, it helped get me up to speed for the 2014 puzzle was they have just like, what happens. They had a. What happened in the 2012 puzzle, part one and part two.
Chris: That's great.
Kayla: What happened in the 2013 puzzle, part one and part two. And it takes you exactly through every single step by step.
Chris: That's cool.
Kayla: And, like, and not just like, here's how it was solved, but here's. Here's what happened in the community. Oh, here are the things that we.
Chris: Met at the same time.
Kayla: Like, here. Here's what was. Here was what was tried. Here's how this person found this. Like, that kind of thing.
Chris: That's cool.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: Wow, that's extensive.
Kayla: Yeah, it's amazing.
Chris: Whoever's maintaining that. Thanks.
Kayla: Yeah, that's labor. Cannot stress enough. Like, go check it out. You go check it out, listeners. It just walks you through everything with just painstaking detail. And the fact that it's curated entirely by solvers is amazing to me. Like, it's just like, thank you. Thank you for doing that.
Chris: It sounds like you're definitely a member of this cult.
Kayla: Well, I was briefly in 2014.
Chris: I think you still are. The way you're speaking and your eyes are all glassed over right now.
Kayla: I'm talking about a cool community.
Chris: You're drooling a little bit. I don't know if you knew that.
Kayla: Oh, yeah, that's just normal.
Chris: I guess that's normal, though. Yeah.
Kayla: So overall, though, aside of the. My fervent cult behavior, it's a pretty cool sounding community. Right, dude?
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Okay. Agreed. That then brings me now to theorist community. And I honestly thought that I was going to spend way more time talking about theorist community on this episode because that's the community that has the more, like, wild, crazy, more culty conspiracies. Like, they're the people who, like, think that maybe there's, like, occult stuff happening or supernatural stuff happening or, like, oh, it's the lizard people conspiracy stuff happening. But honestly, once I tucked into the research and thought about it and talked to the solvers that I talked to, it almost feels irresponsible to spend too much time here, really. I don't want to paint all theorists with a bad brush, but unfortunately, there is a certain degree of very alarming toxicity to come out of that community.
Chris: Is it like a paranoia, like a qAnon, sort of like conspiracy, probably tinged with a lot of racism? Is it that kind of thing?
Kayla: We'll get into it. It's always that because 3301 is so mysterious and because it deals with cryptography and esotericism and the dark web, it's really easy to let your imagination run wild when you're speculating about what it could be. I mean, I've heard theories. I've heard theories that are as crazy as, like. Like, 3301 is an advanced AI and. And we're all living in the matrix. And the AI uses the 3301 puzzles to find out how. To find out how well we'd react to learning we live in a simulation. The idea is that if you solve the puzzle, the AI tells you, hey, you're living in a simulation, and the AI is using the reactions of the winners to gauge, like, how.
Chris: Well, I thought you were going to say that they're using it to, like, weed out potential neos.
Kayla: Ooh.
Chris: Cause see, that would be. That would make sense, right? Because the neos would be the ones that would be good at solving the puzzle. And you get them all in a room together and say, congratulations for solving the puzzle, and then you just gas em.
Kayla: That's really dark. Please don't say that again.
Chris: That's. Hey, that's what the Matrix was, man.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: They wanted to kill people. Well, of course people wanted to kill them.
Kayla: So hopefully we're not living in the Matrix. There are other theorists that think that 3301 is this, like, shadowy, evil cabal. Of course they're evil.
Chris: Of course. Yeah.
Kayla: Or that it's some sort of godlike interdimensional being.
Chris: What does Teal Swan think? That's what I want to know.
Kayla: Let's email her and ask. I'll post it in Teal tribe.
Chris: I mean, actually. Oh, my God. She has the Akashic records.
Kayla: Oh, my God. She knows who three things are, so.
Chris: She knows who they are.
Kayla: I'm gonna post it in teal tribe. I'm like, not even kidding.
Chris: Do it.
Kayla: I could post it in teal tribe.
Chris: Oh, my God.
Kayla: I don't think I've seen.
Chris: Tell us who they are.
Kayla: I have not said this on the podcast yet. I have not. Maybe I should say it somewhere else, but I'm gonna say it now.
Chris: Say it.
Kayla: I told you.
Chris: Did you?
Kayla: The only brief follow up I want to give about my experience in Teal tribe is that 90% of the. I don't know why, but since I did the podcast on it, 90% of the posts in Teal tribe are people trying to pick a fight about veganism versus non veganism. It's like, every dude, I tried to.
Chris: Do that, didn't I?
Kayla: I don't know. But every other post is literally a vegan with you. I mean, being like, here's an inflammatory post about. Well, that's definitely designed to start a debate about this. And then the next post is a meat eater being like, here's an inflammatory post. Definitely designed to create a debate about this. I don't know why it keeps coming up, but, like, people are, like, leaving the Facebook group because.
Chris: No, that's terrible.
Kayla: So I'll post in there about this, at least to just, like, break up the monotony of the veganism.
Chris: That'll be nice.
Kayla: Yeah. A particular website I found claimed that there's no way 3301 could be from our plane of existence due to the skill required in making these puzzles. And also, if you give a close reading of the libra primus, it definitely points out that they're from an interdimensional being.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: There's even a website out there mimicking 3301 style, like, using the black and the white and the different images. So they very specifically mimic this style and call. It's called. Wait, so they mimic the style, and then they also call the following of Cicada 3301. And, like, espousing their presented beliefs and philosophy, circadianism, a technomystical order.
Chris: I mean, that's kind of true, though, right?
Kayla: I don't know. I don't want to get too much into it because, again, toxicity.
Chris: But if I were into this. I would want to call myself a circadianist.
Kayla: Circadianist.
Chris: Although I also don't know the people that are bestowing that name, and they're probably racist, so I don't know.
Kayla: I don't know if they are. Unfortunately, there is a lot of bad stuff going on in the theorist community. I can't speak to racism, as mentioned a few times there. Remember how often 3301 reminded solvers to only pay attention to 3301 clues signed with their PGP?
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Well, this is kind of why it's really, really easy to create your own fake puzzles or fake websites or troll puzzles, what have you. It's very easy to pose as 3301. And unfortunately, a number of people have jumped on the interest in 3301 to try and, like, get their own.
Chris: Yep. Yeah. I mean, when you said the PGP thing, which, again, that's. That's the. That's the official king seal that made so much sense to me because I.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: You know that something like this is going to have copycats and trolls.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: And self interested people and.
Kayla: Yeah, that's why it's like, something like PGP is so important. I think it's probably gonna become more and more important as we continue, like, living more and more of our lives online and continue having, like, difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction. Like, if deepfakes are gonna be a.
Chris: Thing, that video I saw of Zuckerberg talking about building his evil empire.
Kayla: Yeah. Like, if it's totally real, if deepfakes are gonna be a thing, like, we're gonna have to rely more and more on things that are like, yeah.
Chris: Oh, I hope somebody. Deepfakes, our podcast. Is this episode of Deepfake.
Kayla: No.
Chris: Is it a shallow fake?
Kayla: You're a shallow fake. I. Yeah, I talked to Knox about this whole thing a little bit, and this is what Knox had to say. Quote, there's another larger community who grew some years after the puzzles were finished that are more conspiracy theorists and make imitation puzzles on YouTube at some point, et cetera, who, in my experience, are a toxic and sadly hateful group. When I started posting my solutions online, as well as tutorials on how to tell if a post is actually from 3301, I had to deal with a lot of online stalking and harassment from them that would eventually involve the police.
Chris: What the hell, man?
Kayla: That's pretty much what I said when I heard that. Like, I was on it, I was shocked to hear that because that's upsetting. I just. I really couldn't fathom how someone simply posting videos about how to accurately soften 301 puzzles could draw that level of ire.
Chris: Well, I guess maybe people that are faking it are upset that he's showing how to debunk them.
Kayla: Well, let me explain it to you, because I asked more. I was like, I need you to expand on this for me, please. And Noc said, quote, dealing with the other side was anxiety inducing. There was a few months of being linked threads every few days of people trying to dox me and find out where I live. Talk of trying to get me swatted. Swatting. Do you want to explain swatting, or do you want me to explain swatting?
Chris: Swatting is the best.
Kayla: Swatting is a practice of mostly Internet trolls, where basically. And it can be very dangerous.
Chris: Yeah, by best people. By best, I mean horrific.
Kayla: It's killed people.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Swatting is basically when you fake phone calls to the cops and you get the SWAT team to, like, go to somebody else's house and you're like, there's a crime happening. And you get this literal SWAT team to go swarm a totally innocent person's house.
Chris: Yeah. And they're just sitting there watching Netflix. It's like the end.
Kayla: Only one person has been killed by this, but people get killed this way, so don't do it.
Chris: It's like the end of Christmas vacation.
Kayla: You gotta explain.
Chris: No, I don't go watch National Lampoon's Christmas vacation with Chevy Chase.
Kayla: Also, you should say spoiler alert first.
Chris: Oh, yeah, spoiler alert from the movie from the eighties.
Kayla: Continuing Knox's quote. So talk. Trying to get me swatted. There's still some videos around on YouTube of people just hatefully ranting about me. A main reason they were so aggressive is my first video explained how to spot fakes, and apparently it impacted the revenue the imitators were making off YouTube videos about it, so they kind of spurned their followers on.
Chris: Well, maybe you shouldn't make revenue off of faking.
Kayla: Yeah, that's my thoughts on that.
Chris: But that would make sense why they would want to retaliate.
Kayla: Knox also told me a story about being approached by a crazed theorist at a conference. I'm going to assume it was Defcon. And this person had no idea that they were talking to Knox. They just knew they were talking to somebody who was into 3301, and they proceeded to complain about how much they hated this Knox guy. I just. I like that.
Chris: That's awesome.
Kayla: It's a hilarious story.
Chris: Yeah, just you go like, yeah, man, that guy's a jerk.
Kayla: I hope so. So, yeah, this conversation really made me not want to give too much time to that aspect of the community. And again, it's not that all theorists are bad. Like, I've watched multiple videos on YouTube about, like, the crazy 3301 theories because it's fun. Like, it's fun to pretend.
Chris: It's fun to speculate and pretend, sure.
Kayla: But it's important to remember that those videos are fakes and are for fun and are not fact. And they don't really have much to do with the solver community actually trying to get at the real heart of the real 3301.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Before we wrap up, okay, because we're almost there, I do want to mention that while there have been a handful of former 3301 members or puzzle solvers who have come forward to criticize 3301 or make creepy conspiracy claims about it, most of those are considered by the community to be fakes. But there was one anonymous person who popped into the IRC channel on January 4, 2013, right before the 2013 puzzle dropped. And this person that hopped into IRC claimed to have been part of 3301 for a decade. And what this person had to say gave enough people in the solver community pause, that I feel like we should mention it. So this anonymous user wrote, quote, I'm here to warn you, stay away. Yeah, I'm here to warn you, stay away. Starts dramatic like this.
Kayla: What this person had to say after this whole thing, this entire speech, has come to be known in the Solvers community as the warning. Like it has a name.
Chris: Oh my God.
Kayla: So from the Rolling Stone article, the author said he had been a military officer in an unnamed non english speaking country when, after a year of being unknowingly vetted in person, he was recruited by a member of 3301. He described them as a group of like minded individuals, all incredibly talented and connected, working together for the common good, the good of mankind. But over several paragraphs, he cautioned others about their cultish beliefs. A conviction, for example, in the quote, the global brain as another kind of God. 301 was nothing more, he wrote, than a religion disguised as a progressive scientific organization. He concluded by saying he had since found Jesus.
Kayla: So while this might be a troll, Marcus Wanner actually believes it easily could have come from inside 3301, but he thinks that it might have been intentionally crafted to keep anyone that's easily scared off away from the puzzles. Like, essentially, if you believed the warning and dropped out of the race, that's exactly what they wanted, 3301 wanted. It's also important to note, and I think that this kind of supports the Marcus Wehner theory on this, that the warning was posted a mere few hours before the 2013 puzzle dropped, which is.
Chris: Suspiciously good timing, coincidence, or just weird?
Kayla: That's our next podcast. Before we finish, I just want to read a brief passage from Wikipedia about 3301. It has been called the most elaborate and mysterious puzzle of the Internet age and is listed as one of the top five eeriest unsolved mysteries of the Internet. And much speculation exists as to its function. Many have speculated that the puzzles are a recruitment tool for the NSA, CIA, Mi Six, a masonic conspiracy, or a cyber mercenary group. Others have claimed Cicada 3301 is an alternate reality game. No company or individual has taken credit for it or attempted to monetize it. However, some have claimed that Cicada 3301 is a secret society with the goal of improving cryptography, privacy, anonymity. Others have claimed that 3301 is a cult or religion. Okay, so that was a lot.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: And we're at the end. And honestly, much like the TS one episode, I'm leaving a ton out, but I feel like we've done a pretty good overview as to where our listeners are asleep now. So I feel like we can maybe consider ourselves ready to answer the question.
Chris: The question of the podcast, is Cicada.
Kayla: 3301 a cult, or is it just weird?
Chris: Hey, the name of the podcast.
Kayla: So, since you're gonna spearhead the answering of these questions, do you want to go through our criterias?
Chris: Well, first we have to do this.
Kayla: It's the ASMR corner.
Chris: There's the criteria right there. That's good. Okay, so let's see what order I want to read these in, because I don't like the default order. Let's start with charismatic leader. Was there a charismatic leader?
Kayla: It seems like there's not, like, there's, like, a bob. Bob cicada, but, like, is.
Chris: Oh, my God, that would be amazing.
Kayla: But the, like, the anonymous gestalt of.
Chris: It's like, there's, like, a cabal.
Kayla: It's like, if we're talking about this as a cult, then it would be Cicada 3301 is the charismatic leader, and all of the solvers are the cultists.
Chris: Are the cultists. Sure.
Kayla: And they are hella charismatic because boy, howdy, do they know how to get somebody interested in what they have to say.
Chris: But, I mean, at the same time, aren't they also trying to filter?
Kayla: True, but I mean, but I guess that's not. Yeah, cult leaders are gonna be like, oh, you're gonna be able to me in a few years. And I don't want you.
Chris: Yeah. Okay.
Kayla: So I'm not. I don't think they're a cult, but I haven't got. I'm just telling you, let's not. I haven't gone jump criteria.
Chris: I actually think that based on your argument that the, like, the cabal slash, the puzzle itself is the charismatic leader, I actually think that's a fairly strong yes, because it is. It is kind of charismatic.
Kayla: Like, oh, my God.
Chris: You hear about it and you go, whoa, that's cool.
Kayla: Cool.
Chris: I wanna do it.
Kayla: Yeah, I know.
Chris: So I'm gonna say that's a check. All right, let's go to ritual.
Kayla: There is so much ritual. It is mostly ritual. Well, just the. Okay, all of this about the wounds, all of the waiting. All of the waiting until it happens. Just even solving the puzzles. There's some amount of ritual there.
Chris: Okay. There's no repeated. Every. You know, every Sunday, though, we do XYZ thing. You know, we give thanks to the cicada and drink the wine and eat the body of cicada.
Kayla: What about if you make it in and you're, like, working on something like cakes? Is that ritual?
Chris: I mean, I don't think we can just characterize any activity as ritual.
Kayla: Every activity is ritual. I don't know. I think with. I do think with 3301, the, like, all of the runic stuff and all of the, like, the close studying, that feels very, like it's. It's not unlike somebody studying religious scripture.
Chris: Right. And I guess before trying to decode that, before we've counted things, like. Like, ritual isn't necessarily repeated behaviors. It's also, at least in our, you know, totally uninformed definition. It's also props and icon and, you know, stylized behavior. Yeah, yeah. So I guess in the sense that there are definitely props and iconography and.
Kayla: Right. There's a very specific cicada image.
Chris: So I'm gonna say that's.
Kayla: The cicada image is used often. Like, it was used on the coordinates. It was used on multiple websites.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: The cicada image is a thing.
Chris: I'm gonna say it gets an 80% check for ritual based on that percentage of life consumed. Well, judging from what I know of the cicada solver in my life, it's like 100%, I think.
Kayla: Well, I literally, like, for went sleep. Like there was in the rolling song. Marcus wanner talks about, like, staying. Like, he went to, like, a piano lesson, and the teacher was like, oh, you're bad for playing so poorly. He's like, I've been awake for 30 hours. Like.
Chris: That one's a subdivide. Solid check. Yeah, that one's a dark green check.
Kayla: Well, but. Okay, but for a lot of these people, it's only consuming your life for, like, a month, and then people are done with it. But I guess.
Chris: Well, no, that's actually a good point, because consuming life is not just you spend every day at the cult, it's also like you're gone. Like, and you're not coming back. Right, right. Like, if you're just doing it for a few days and then you're back to your regular life, then it's not.
Kayla: Really life consumed, but all of the people who have maybe been solvers for the last, like, three years.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: I don't know.
Chris: Okay, so maybe it's not quite a solid 100% check, but it's there.
Kayla: It's on the table.
Chris: Some life consumed.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: I mean, it's percentage of life consumed. So we can just give it a percentage. I'm gonna say 57.2%.
Kayla: If I could take. If. I would not want to do this, but if for. If some magical way I could take out all of the time in my life that I have spent thinking about or talking about or working on cicada related stuff and, like, replaced it with something else. I could probably play the guitar by now. Like, I could probably, like, pretty good play the guitar by now.
Chris: Well, but like you said, you learned other valuable stuff.
Kayla: Yeah, I'm just saying, the amount of time that I, as a casual person, have spent thinking about this is still a lot.
Chris: Yeah. So I think 57.2 is pretty precise.
Kayla: Good for me.
Chris: Yeah. Okay. Population of cults. So this is the one that's always, like, weird every week.
Kayla: The controversial.
Chris: The controversial criteria. So what we have discussed changing this to is it mainstream or is it niche? Not necessarily. Does it have ten people or a thousand people?
Kayla: Right.
Chris: It feels pretty niche. But, like, also, I've heard of it.
Kayla: Definitely niche. You've only heard of it because of me. And then when you think about the, like, some of the shit that they're referencing here, like, really esoteric, quite niche. Aleister Crowley stuff and esoteric zen Buddhism stuff. And just like, really, some of the stuff that I didn't get into is just, like, really, really esoteric. Like cryptography stuff. Yeah, this is about a lot of the cryptography stuff, but then there's, like, even more, like, lesser known cryptography things that they deal with. So I think it's niche.
Chris: Yeah, it's solid. Check. I think you're right. Antifactuality. So when we talk about that, we mean not just. Are you just making stuff up using God of the gaps arguments, bunk logic, but also, are you using motivated reasoning to maintain your closed logical system?
Kayla: I'm gonna say there's zero of that. If we're talking. If we're gonna involve. If we're gonna open it up to theorist community, then that's all. Theorist community. But I'm not really talking about theorist community as part of this. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like I'm mostly looking at the solver community, and I consider.
Chris: Is that where we're drawing the line?
Kayla: I think, for me, it's like, the.
Chris: Theorist community is not really part. Yeah, I think that's a fair way to draw the line, judging from what you said, because theorist community isn't.
Kayla: Drawn in by the same charismatic leader that the solvers are. They're drawn in by kind of, like, their own. Like, that's the motivated reasoning. It's the, like, ooh, this is weird and creepy. So I'm gonna figure out, like, all.
Chris: I'm gonna fill in my. My thing about it being an interdimensional right space God or whatever, whereas, like.
Kayla: The solvers tend to be more skeptical and logical and, like, following what's been presented.
Chris: Okay, so for the group that we're actually looking at here, I would say that is a flat zero.
Kayla: Agreed.
Chris: Okay, so the last criteria. Criterion is expected harm. Expected harm towards the individual could be. It could be socially. So it could be cutting you off from your friends and family, or it could be actual physical harm where you're being branded, or it could be emotional or mental distress. So it's just some sort of harm towards the individual.
Kayla: The only harm I see present here is maybe losing a little bit of sleep and then maybe getting a little too obsessed with something.
Chris: Maybe. Yeah. But even then, it's like, if I'm losing sleep over something that's really compelling, and, like, if I'm solving a fun puzzle with a bunch of smart people, right. It doesn't feel like a bad reason to lose sleep.
Kayla: You're making friends in the process. You're, like, doing bonding. You are learning new skills. If you're staying up for 30 hours straight, then you're getting interviewed by Rolling Stone later.
Chris: Right. So on the balance, that's not even harmful, really, to lose that sleep. So I would say that expected harm for the community, we're talking about zero.
Kayla: About, like, some, like, Knox who has been very nearly swatted because of his involvement with this community.
Chris: Yes, but, you know, all of those things are coming from what we're calling outsiders. They're not coming from Cicada, they're not coming from members of the cabal, coming from outside people.
Kayla: What about the emotional damage from being involved with cicada and then being unceremoniously dropped and then disappearing?
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Actually, is being abandoned by your God, like the ultimate?
Chris: I guess that's pretty shitty. Okay, so this isn't zero, because that sucks. You hear me? Cicada? You guys need to do right by your. Your damn cult members.
Kayla: Oh, my God. Is this a deist cult?
Chris: Yes. I don't know.
Kayla: Cause it's a, like, God just made the thing and then walked away and.
Chris: Then bailed and was like, they're good. I mean, I certainly think the third stage is.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: First two, maybe not. Okay, so interestingly, that's two really solid zeros, right. And four roughly solid to very solid.
Kayla: One hundred s. And yet I still don't think it's a cult.
Chris: What makes you say that? Even though the criteria point in the other direction, I think. Is it that the criteria need to be weighted?
Kayla: I definitely think the criteria are weighted, because I think. I think maybe the one that holds the most weight for me is the.
Chris: Anti factuality more than expected harm, or is it just.
Kayla: I think in determining a beneficial call.
Chris: Like, let's, like, could you have some. Okay. There's no antifactuality. There's no harm. So what does that mean? What do we have? We have charismatic leader. So it's. It's charismatic. It brings people in. Right? There's ritual. That's not. That's a neutral thing.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: Niche. Niche. Things are just niche. They're not good or bad. They're just. They're just niche. And then percentage of life consumed. I mean, that can be harmful. But, you know, we have a separate criteria for that. So really, we're just talking about that by itself. So all of those things are either neutral or not that bad.
Kayla: Like, anti factuality and.
Chris: And expected harm are bad.
Kayla: Are very bad.
Chris: So can we have a cult that's maybe not bad, it's a beneficial cult?
Kayla: I just don't think it's a cult.
Chris: Or do we say that it's not a cult because it doesn't have the bad stuff?
Kayla: I think that if you don't have the bad stuff, you're not a cult.
Chris: Oh, well, then we need to talk about our criteria some more.
Kayla: Why?
Chris: Well, because then we should really just talk about those two criteria.
Kayla: No, because even if you have. If you have just those two criteria, it's not enough to make you a cult because there's like expected harm.
Chris: I see. So some of these conditions are sufficient or necessary, but not sufficient.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: And some of them are. I don't remember how this whole thing goes, but. Yeah. Okay, well, yeah, maybe we need to have a chat about this stuff, I think. Because I'm not. I'm not sure I agree. I think I'm more on the side of. You can have non harmful cults.
Kayla: I don't, I don't.
Chris: I mean, cult is generally used as a pejorative.
Kayla: Yeah, I don't think it's a cult then. I think it's a fellowship. It's a club, sure.
Chris: But not all fellowships are club or clubber.
Kayla: Just weird.
Chris: Have charisma, like, I don't know. The Rotary club isn't out trying to recruit people with like, cool shit. Right? I mean, not all clubs have rituals. Not all clubs have. Not all clubs are niche. Not all clubs consume most of your life.
Kayla: I just don't think there's a beneficial cult. I think that's ultimately what this podcast is like trying to do. It's us. Instead of just like reading a book, it's us being like, let's try to figure out what a cult is. It's like we could probably exploring it. We could just go. You and I could just go and like take a class.
Chris: Okay. Yes and no. I mean, we have done some of. Some research on this topic. Right? Like we know for. We know that.
Kayla: I'm just saying, you and I preached to ourselves, sure.
Chris: Cult is not an academic term. An academic term that is used is new religious movement.
Kayla: That doesn't mean that the term cult isn't used in an academic setting.
Chris: Sure. But I don't know. I think this is something we're gonna have to come back to because I think I'm leaning towards this is.
Kayla: You're leaning towards cult?
Chris: I'm leaning towards beneficial cults.
Kayla: You think I'm in a cult? You think I'm in a cult? Are you comfortable saying that your wife is an occult? Because if you're calling this a cult, then I am part of it.
Chris: What did we say about Star citizen? Not a cult.
Kayla: I think we said it was just weird. And that has way more anti factuality and expected harm. Well, I don't know about expected harm, but it definitely is way more.
Chris: Well, we talked about that with the fact that they're spending hundreds and thousands of dollars.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: I am really torn on this one.
Kayla: You are welcome to say that it's a beneficial cult. I welcome the disagreement here. And I'm okay being in the 3301 cult. I just want to make sure you.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, to answer your question. Yeah, I mean, happy with you being in a cult. You're a weirdo. I'm. I'm more concerned about whether Cicada should be classified as one or not.
Kayla: The fact that. I'll say the fact that the warning was like, they're culty and weird makes me go even more like they're not a cult.
Chris: Like, they're not.
Kayla: Yeah, but that's also teal swan reasoning, right?
Chris: Well, I'm. But I'm. Yeah, but that's teal Swan saying it versus, like, somebody coming in from left field and then saying. And then following that up with, I found Jesus. That's a motivated reasoning there, potentially.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Like, I found Jesus. So therefore this other thing was a cult.
Kayla: Well, but also I believe the warning is Cicada calling itself a cult to show.
Chris: Which then just makes the whole thing moot anyway. I mean, I'll say that, like, before we talked about the criteria, to me, it didn't feel like a cult at all.
Kayla: Right. And then we talked about the criteria. It's a little hard to note. I frame it in those. Those terms.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Like, I'm just choosing to go, no, I don't think it's a cult. Even though our criteria give it some points in the cult column.
Chris: Yeah, I almost feel like we need to have a whole episode about the criteria and just, like, go through each one, figure out how to weight it, figure out whether it should be killed. I know our audience would love that. We're probably gonna have to cut, like, half of this entire conversation.
Kayla: Once we get our patreon up and running, then that can be some, like, ancillary content.
Chris: Right, right. Your patreon members get our seven hour debate whether this shit's a cult or not. Look. Oh, man, I gotta make a call because people are gonna start tuning out. I'm gonna say beneficial cult, but it's very close because my gut reaction is still not a cult. But I think that's just because my gut responds to the pejorative sense of the word cult.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: So that's why I'm gonna try to go with my. My forebrain here and say that it is a cult. It's just a beneficial cult. But I kind of want to give this more thought and report back in a future episode. If I change my mind, it's fine with me.
Kayla: I'm saying it's not a cult.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Cause if I said it were a.
Chris: Cult, is this the first one we've disagreed on?
Kayla: I think so.
Chris: It is.
Kayla: I also don't think it's.
Chris: Get out of here.
Kayla: I wonder if me saying being so adamant about it not being a cult.
Chris: That'S just my being a cult. You know what that is? It's motivated reasoning. Oh, shit. It does have anti factuality. Oh, cult for sure. That was the cult for sure. Gavel hitting the table.
Kayla: All right, so that was awesome. I don't think it's a cult. And you do?
Chris: And I do now.
Kayla: Cicada 330. One's gonna come after us.
Chris: No, they'll just come after me. Please don't swat us. You can dox me. Like nobody will care, but just don't swat me. But they won't come after us because we think they're awesome. And vice versa.
Kayla: Oh, God. Like, I just am so.
Chris: Well, hopefully vice versa.
Kayla: I'm very grateful to live in a world where Cicada 3301 exists.
Chris: Yeah. I mean, it makes the world just.
Kayla: A little bit more magical.
Chris: Exactly. That's what I was just gonna say. Like, before we even talked about it and I knew about it, or before we talked about it on the show.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: And I knew about it from you and had, you know, poked at a little bit on my own, I was.
Kayla: The first person to tell you about it, right?
Chris: I believe so. So pat yourself in the back. But, yeah, I always saw it as one of those. Somebody is out there making the world a little bit more of a magical place, as you say. And that's something that is in the crazy, mundane, but also strange reality we live in. Having little bits of magic here and there are. I mean, that's what. That's what makes life awesome.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: So thanks, Cicada.
Kayla: Thanks, Cicada.
Chris: If you're listening, I also.
Kayla: I just. I want to. Again, I really want to thank the solvers that spoke to me for this episode.
Chris: Yeah, that was like. That's awesome.
Kayla: I cannot thank nox popula enough. Everybody should go check out everything he has to say on Reddit. Go check out. Definitely check out his YouTube videos. They're still developing, too. Like, they're still being put out. And there's a video with Marcus Wehner. Like, they're really cool. So thank you for chatting with me. Knox Populi. Also a huge shout out to Rey, who is still, like, is taking up the mantle like, go. If you are interested in this, go do your homework and then go help out Ray and the 50 other solvers that are still trying to get this Libra primus solved. I also would be remiss to not give a shout out to the YouTube series Rey is currently developing and producing. The first episode is actually out now, so all of our listeners should immediately go and subscribe on YouTube.
Chris: I think the channel, like, share subscribe.
Kayla: But for Rey, yeah, us too.
Chris: Also us.
Kayla: But also Rey, I think the channel name is Pond underscore.
Chris: And the first you think, or, you.
Kayla: Know, I'm not cool enough to quite. No, that's what it looked like to me when I. When he, like, linked me to it. It looked like it was underscore. Pond underscore. But I don't know if there was.
Chris: Some underscore, like p o n d or.
Kayla: No. Pond. P a w n e d. I'm gonna link to it in the show notes.
Chris: Okay. I just want to make sure that we, like, send people the right way.
Kayla: Well, this is what I'm gonna say. The video title, the first.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: So they can just search it is Cicada 3301. The game begins, episode one. One. And this. This really looks to be like. Actually, it'll be a great tool for anyone who kind of wants to get involved with 3301 now, but doesn't know where to start. So for all you potential solvers out there, this is gonna be a really great YouTube channel for you.
Chris: I'm tempted to go watch it myself, actually.
Kayla: Oh, you should. The first episode's up, we get a little shout out. It's really nice.
Chris: Oh, now I'm dead next. Cause, I mean, now I feel special. So now I'm definitely gonna watch it.
Kayla: But, like, again, because there's such a need for new, fresh blood, and there's also a need for the fresh blood to come in already knowing everything that's happened. So the more recent questions, the more resources, the better. So keep an eye on this YouTube series.
Chris: Nice.
Kayla: And another huge thank you to what is Cicada 18? I feel like, what is Cicada 18? And I maybe have a little more in common on this whole thing since I'm kind of. I'm, you know, I don't have the skill to be a solver, but what is Cicada 18? It's just, again, it's so inspirational to chat with somebody who has self taught themselves, like, cryptography, just as a hobby now because of this. So, Rae, thank you so much for chatting with me. It was super insightful. What is Cicada 18? Thank you so much for answering my questions. And another huge thank you to the uncovering cicada wiki and everybody contributing in the Reddit and everybody just all across the Internet still talking about this thing and keeping it.
Chris: I think I need to play you off at this point.
Kayla: Fuck you.
Chris: But yeah, I agree. Thank you to all those guys for me as well. I think it's super cool that you were willing to talk to our humble little podcast. And if something else comes up, like if there's a new development, I think we should do a follow up episode on it, folks show, we should probably shuffle some stuff around to get it in there.
Kayla: So cicada 3301 cult, not a cult.
Chris: Well, you say just weird.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: And I say that's motivated reasoning. It's a cult, but a good cult. A magical cult.
Kayla: A magic cult.
Chris: That was. I feel like I say this every time, but that was a journey. Yes, it was, for sure.
Kayla: This is potentially gonna be our longest episode so far.
Chris: Yeah, I learned things. My foot fell asleep multiple times. Multiple times. I'm sweaty, so I am ripe.
Kayla: Thanks for listening to our 8th episode, cultists. We really appreciate you. This is number eight. Yeah.
Chris: Wow.
Kayla: We're almost ten. It's kind of crazy. Keep liking and rating and reviewing and subscribing.
Chris: Oh, so I wanted to do something different this time, actually, Twitter and Instagram.
Kayla: And Facebook and whatever else, you'll just.
Chris: Keep doing that instead. Well, so I read that maybe it's better in some cases, or at least sometimes, to not say, oh, rate, like share, subscribe, whatever at the end of every episode. And some episodes say something different, like, hey, listeners, tweet at us, a cult that you'd like to, you know, for us to research or, how are you liking the show? Give us some feedback or something like that.
Kayla: We love feedback.
Chris: Yeah, feedback would be sweet. We've already gotten some feedback and it obviously makes our day. Feedback.
Kayla: Feedback, yeah.
Chris: Positive feedback only.
Kayla: Okay, that's a lie. I want you to criticize us harshly.
Chris: Positive feedback for me only. Criticism for Kayla is fine.
Kayla: Love it.
Chris: Okay to contact us through the akashic records, please, and we'll just talk to teal.
Kayla: I don't want to talk to teal. I'm scared of her.
Chris: No. So you can always email us@cultorjustweirdmail.com and you can find us on Twitter ultorgiousweird.
Kayla: There you go.
Chris: Those are the best ways.
Kayla: Those are the goodest of ways.
Chris: Yes, indeed. Well, I think that it's probably time that we wrap up, because it's been forever, and I'm gonna fall asleep here like my foot. So this is Chris, this is Kayla, and this is Benjen. Cult or just weird?