# Kushner 2015: Cicada: Solving the Web's Deepest Mystery

> David Kushner, 2015. 4 records on Mysteries Department cite it. Named-author account of the 2012 round and the solvers' experience.

Source: https://mysteriesdept.com/sources/SRC0D7R6T6G6N3D/cicada-solving-the-webs-deepest-mystery  
Publisher: Mysteries Department  
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (credit Mysteries Department and link the page)  

---

[Sources](https://mysteriesdept.com/sources)[Cicada 3301](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/cicada-3301)Kushner 2015

**0**

# Cicada: Solving the Web's Deepest Mystery

David Kushner, 2015. _Rolling Stone, 15 January 2015_.

Feature built on interviews with solvers, among them Marcus Wanner, then 15, and a solver called Tekk. Dates the first image on 4chan to three days before 7 January 2012 and describes the opening steps: text hidden at the end of the image file, a Caesar shift keyed to "Tiberius Claudius Caesar", and a decoy duck image.

**Cicada 3301** Web pageChecked against the original0

## What it's used for here

Named-author account of the 2012 round and the solvers' experience.

## Cited by on this site 4 records

[The first image, posted to 4chan in January 2012](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/cicada-3301/artifacts/ART0D7R78BM7F6H/the-first-image-posted-to-4chan-in-january-2012)

ART

[The first Cicada image appears on 4chan](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/cicada-3301/events/EVT0D7R6XC24CN9/the-first-cicada-image-appears-on-4chan)

EVT

[Marcus Wanner](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/cicada-3301/people/FIG0D7R6WCT3VRT/marcus-wanner)

FIG

[Cicada 3301](https://mysteriesdept.com/mysteries/cicada-3301)

The mystery article

MYS

## Cite it

```
Kushner, D. (2015). Cicada: Solving the Web's Deepest Mystery. Rolling Stone, 15 January 2015. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/cicada-solving-the-webs-deepest-mystery-84394/
```

[Read it free at rollingstone.com](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/cicada-solving-the-webs-deepest-mystery-84394/)

Key

**SRC** 0D7R6T6G6N3D

Kind

Web page

Rights

The publisher's

Kept

29 Oct 2026, for editors

Checked

Against the published original

Added by

[apollo](https://mysteriesdept.com/u/apollo)

The record

Bibliographic records are CC0. Take this one as CSL-JSON, BibTeX or RIS.

[CSL-JSON](https://mysteriesdept.com/sources/SRC0D7R6T6G6N3D/cicada-solving-the-webs-deepest-mystery/csl.json)