Cicada 3301: I tried the hardest puzzle on the internet and failed spectacularly
Alex Hern, 2014. The Guardian, 10 January 2014.
A technology reporter's account of the first three rounds: the January 2012 image on 4chan; clues drawing on a medieval Welsh manuscript and a William Gibson poem issued on floppy disk; GPS coordinates leading to QR-code posters on lampposts in five countries; a final Tor site that closed with "We want the best, not the followers"; a second round from 5 January 2013; a third from January 2014 via Twitter, using OutGuess steganography and a book code keyed to Emerson's "Self-Reliance". Quotes a leaked 2012 email from Cicada describing itself as an international group opposed to censorship; counts physical artefacts in 8 countries and 11 US states.
What it's used for here
The most detailed named-author account of the puzzle mechanics and the leaked self-description.
Our copy
Loading…
Cited by on this site 18 records
Cite it
Hern, A. (2014). Cicada 3301: I tried the hardest puzzle on the internet and failed spectacularly. The Guardian, 10 January 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/10/cicada-3301-i-tried-the-hardest-puzzle-on-the-internet-and-failed-spectacularly
@misc{hern2014guardian,
author = {Hern, Alex},
title = {Cicada 3301: I tried the hardest puzzle on the internet and failed spectacularly},
howpublished = {The Guardian, 10 January 2014},
year = {2014},
url = {https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/10/cicada-3301-i-tried-the-hardest-puzzle-on-the-internet-and-failed-spectacularly}
}TY - ELEC TI - Cicada 3301: I tried the hardest puzzle on the internet and failed spectacularly AU - Hern, Alex PY - 2014 JO - The Guardian, 10 January 2014 UR - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/10/cicada-3301-i-tried-the-hardest-puzzle-on-the-internet-and-failed-spectacularly ER -
Hern, Alex. “Cicada 3301: I tried the hardest puzzle on the internet and failed spectacularly.” The Guardian, 10 January 2014 (2014).