It all started on January 4, 2012, when a user shared a photo on 4chan. Various adventures awaited users who thought they could easily overcome this puzzle.
What kind of details did Cicada 3301 have and what happened during the period when this puzzle was popular?
An anonymous person using the pseudonym 3301 said that there was a hidden message in the photo and invited other users of 4chan to solve this mystery.
Shortly after the photo was published, a user managed to open this file and encountered some password lines:
“Hello. We are looking for very smart people. We prepared a test to find them. There is a hidden message in this image. Find it and it will guide you to find us. We look forward to meeting a few people who can achieve this. Good luck.”
The puzzle circulated on the Internet for about 1 month and managed to attract the attention of thousands of users.
A man named Joel Eriksson was able to decipher this password. The password was solved, but this time a link with a duck photo appeared.
The mysteries continued. When another code hidden in the duck photo was solved, a phone number appeared on the screen. When this number was called, another message appeared.
“Very good. You did a good job. There are three prime numbers associated with the original final.jpg image. 3301 is one of them. You’ll need to find the other two. Multiply three of these numbers together to find the next step and add a .com. Good luck. Bye.”
After making the necessary calculations regarding prime numbers, Eriksson arrived at a URL.
It later turned out that the two prime numbers mentioned in the previous message were actually the dimensions of the image. Adding .com to the end of the number obtained by multiplying 3301 and two prime numbers, Eriksson encountered the image of a cicada and a countdown on the resulting website.
When the countdown reached zero, some coordinates appeared on the page. These coordinates were the GPS coordinates of telephone masts almost everywhere in the world, such as America, Russia, Japan, Poland and Spain.
Of course, Eriksson couldn’t travel around the world to find these codes. For this reason, he found the solution in collaborating with other users trying to solve the puzzle.
Thus, the necessary GPS coordinates were found, but the commands were endless. The detected coordinates pointed to QR codes containing a hidden text.
But the creator or creators of Cicada 3301 suddenly said, “We want the best, not the followers.” He left the message and closed the website, and this adventure ended unexpectedly.
Then, surprisingly, exactly one year after the first puzzle was shared, a second puzzle appeared.
The second puzzle was quite similar to the first. The image led to a message, the message pointed to a book, the book revealed a link. Finally, some coordinates appeared again and the participants took to the streets to find these coordinates.
But what was different this time was that there were eight posters in four different countries. At the end, one group reached the secret final section, but Cicada 3301 disappeared again. Moreover, this time he didn’t even leave a message.
Wait, it’s not over yet!
Cicada 3301 appeared for the third time in 2014. The steps to follow were exactly the same as the previous puzzles. What was different this time was that the puzzle revolved around a book. Various codes were hidden in the book called Liber Primus, written in runic writings.
Cicada 3301 stated that the only way to progress in this puzzle is to translate this book and has not published any other puzzles so far. Currently, 58 of its 74 pages are still unsolved.
Could you handle such a difficult and complex task?
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