Have a happy Thanksgiving, by the way. Thanks for the kind submission, and don't mind my objection to the title not being the original article title.
AFTER EDIT: After all, I read the other comments here before I posted my comment, and it's not even clear that a "secret think tank" is really what the source of the cryptic messages is. That's reason enough to change the title of the submission here.
For submissions of magazine or blog articles, the original title policy makes sense usually, because magazine and blog authors or editors choose titles designed to catch the reader's interest.
Wikipedia titles are more names than titles. They are meant to allow people who are already looking for information on the thing in the title. When a Wikipedia article is submitted with the Wikipedia title, there is usually nothing that tells me why I might find it interesting.
I'd like to see HN allow submitters to include a one line statement saying what is interesting about the submission.
Title: *the title I chose*
Makes me miss Perplex City.
According to a document posted anonymously,
the puzzles are a recruiting for a "think tank."
Thus far, this is unverified.[citation needed]
Have fun. Also, no way to verify if it's an ARG or an actual group to my knowledge.
Annapolis, Maryland / Chino, California / Columbus, Georgia / Erskineville, Australia / Fayetteville, Arkansas / Granada, Spain / Greenville, Texas / Haleiwa, Hawaii / Little Rock, Arkansas / Miami, Florida / Moscow, Russia / New Orleans, Louisiana / Okinawa, Japan / Paris, France / Portland, Oregon / Seattle, Washington / Seoul, South Korea / Warsaw, Poland
I hadn't heard about this, does anybody have links to some of the original forum threads/puzzles?
"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..."
http://uncovering-cicada.wikia.com/wiki/The_Leaked_Email http://pastebin.com/RmqxWcnB
This leaked email is legit. Only punctuation is removed to conceal leaker's ID and first line, FUUU and last two lines are added. People whose servers have been visited in 2013 said htat message leaft on servers was similar/same as that leaked email from 2012.
Second time 3301 refereed to themselves as "think tank" was in "warning pastebin" ""much like a think tank in that [their] primary focus is on researching and developing techniques to aid the ideas [they] advocate: liberty, privacy, and security.""
http://pastebin.com/RmqxWcnB http://uncovering-cicada.wikia.com/wiki/The_Leaked_Email
Legitimacy of this text is harder to prove. But it is too long not to be prepared in advance before posted on 4chan. And some 2012 "winners" confirmed hat they have seen references to Nietzsche, Jung and Jesuits in texts provided by their mentors on their secret onion git (which is offline now).
Proving anything about 3301 is impossible since those who know dont tell and those who tell dont know. If 3301 exists no real "member" will risk being expelled by revealing their secrets.
About name they are most often called just 3301 or Cicada 3301. If there are other "cells" of same organization they certainly use different names to conceal any connection between them. But in general: "You have all wondered who we are and so we shall now tell you we are an international group we have no name 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 that censorship is wrong and that privacy is an inalienable right."
But dont post this anywhere else since it is supposed to insider info and if it became too public project might be endangered. It is bad enough that this escaped into the wild.
Although when 3301 was asked what is their opinion on documenting every step of puzzle and wiki pages, supposedly their answer was that this kind of organization of players is expected.
Dont forget: 3301 will never claim anything as they "dont exist"
One of the response options is "Strange Loop," and one of the questions is:
'I am the voice* inside my head (You undoubtedly just thought "I don't have a voice inside my head." That is the voice the question is referring to).'
(If you aren't familiar, these are both references "I Am a Strange Loop", a book by Hofstadter.)
Anyway, the reference to Hofstadter and the mysterious, elaborate, international nature of this Cicada operation reminded me of a previous thing. A book called “Being or Nothingness” by “Joe K” was mysteriously mailed to academics all over the world a few years ago, and I'm not sure anyone ever figured out why. In it, there were references to Hofstadter and other thinkers. Much like Cicada 3301, the whole thing was kind of intriguing and a little creepy.
In "The Psychopath Test" by Jon Ronson, Ronson asks Hofstadter if he had anything to do with the book and Hofstadter said no. And why would he, right, but both the book and this Cicada 3301 thing seem very Hofstadter-esque to me. Just thought that might be worth pointing out.
http://uncovering-cicada.wikia.com/wiki/What_Happened_Part_2...