# Cicada 3301



## Remnant of Dawn (Feb 22, 2012)

So, does anyone know anything about this? I find it really interesting, and am trying to work my way through past puzzles just for the fun of it right now. For some reason I really like this kind of steganography looking-for-hidden-message puzzle. (Not just reading vague summaries online, actually trying to go step by step). I figured it might be helpful to get advice from anyone else who had tried that in the past.

http://uncovering-cicada.wikia.com/wiki/What_Happened_Part_1_(2012)


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## frankfrisi (Nov 18, 2013)

Yeah I have seen it before. The story goes that every year they recruit members for their group of computer experts. Even professionals have tried and failed though, it's really tough. Last time the first hint was an almost invisible text at the bottom that appeared when you made the picture negative. Right now I can see some sort of "shadow" behind the words which seems to be something. I'll try to get some editor

Edit: All I got



















QR code? I'm kinda stuck


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## frankfrisi (Nov 18, 2013)

Disregard all that, opening it with notepad reveals
"TIBERIVS CLAVDIVS CAESAR says "lxxt>33m2mqkyv2gsq3q=w]O2ntk""


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## Remnant of Dawn (Feb 22, 2012)

frankfrisi said:


> Disregard all that, opening it with notepad reveals
> "TIBERIVS CLAVDIVS CAESAR says "lxxt>33m2mqkyv2gsq3q=w]O2ntk""


Yeah, which is a Ceaser cipher. It turns out to be a dead end though, or at least sort of. I'm working on getting the other message out of that image now.

I don't know why I love this kind of thing so much.


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## nullptr (Sep 21, 2012)

This seems interesting

4chan got to it of course

http://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/13761502/#q13765551


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## frankfrisi (Nov 18, 2013)

Found some spoilers

http://www.clevcode.org/cicada-3301/


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## frankfrisi (Nov 18, 2013)

galacticsenator said:


> This seems interesting
> 
> 4chan got to it of course
> 
> http://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/13761502/#q13765551


Yeah I remember it was always posted there first


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## Remnant of Dawn (Feb 22, 2012)

galacticsenator said:


> This seems interesting
> 
> 4chan got to it of course
> 
> http://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/13761502/#q13765551


Yeah, if I recall correctly that's where it was first posted. There's supposedly going to be another one this January 4th.



frankfrisi said:


> Found some spoilers
> 
> http://www.clevcode.org/cicada-3301/


Yes, I've read the spoilers. But I really don't remember them and I'm starting fresh going just off of memory for fun. The only thing I remember is that right now I have to run outguess on the image. Only problem is, afaik outguess is only available as uncompiled C code for Unix. Which means at some point (that's not Thanksgiving), I'm going to have to work on getting that set up to extract the message from the image.


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## frankfrisi (Nov 18, 2013)

This article is great

But yeah.. the new one:


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## Remnant of Dawn (Feb 22, 2012)

frankfrisi said:


> This article is great
> 
> But yeah.. the new one:


You sure this is right? I thought it was due in January.


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## nullptr (Sep 21, 2012)

frankfrisi said:


> This article is great
> 
> But yeah.. the new one:


I was reading that to myself, and it almost sounds like a threat. "Don't let curiosity ruin your life", "ethics have no place"; almost making it seem like pursing this puzzle is dangerous.

As to the alphanumeric characters they can't be hex so I realized the last one looked like an airplane registration number, they have 6 digits too, only a guess though










though putting the number through the FAA database didn't turn up anything
http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=N26014

I'm wondering what the numbers to the left of the 6 digit numbers mean, the first and last are numrical anagrams for each other and so are the middle 2 so they might be related :stu


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