Cicada 3301 refers to three sets of puzzles posted online under the name "3301" between 2012 and 2014. The first puzzle began on January 4, 2012, on the website 4chan and lasted about a month. A second set of puzzles started on January 4, 2013, exactly one year later. A third set of puzzles began on January 4, 2014, after a new clue was shared on Twitter. The third puzzle has not been solved. The goal of the puzzles was to find and recruit people with high intelligence by solving a series of challenges. No new puzzles were posted on January 4, 2015. A new clue appeared on Twitter on January 5, 2016. Cicada 3301 sent its final confirmed message signed with OpenPGP in April 2017, stating that any puzzles without this signature were not valid.

The puzzles involved topics such as data security, cryptography, steganography, and online privacy. Experts have called it "the most complex and mysterious puzzle of the Internet age." The Washington Post listed it as one of the "top 5 eeriest, unsolved mysteries of the Internet." Many people have guessed that the puzzles might be linked to groups like the NSA, CIA, MI6, Mossad, or a secret society, or that they are part of a cyber mercenaries group. Others believe Cicada 3301 is an alternate reality game, but no company or person has tried to make money from it.

Purpose

The purpose of the puzzles each year was said to be to find "very smart people," although the main goal is still a mystery. Some ideas suggest that Cicada 3301 might be a secret group trying to improve ways to keep information safe and private, or it could be a group with unusual beliefs. According to statements from people who solved the 2012 puzzle, Cicada 3301 usually finds members without using puzzles, but created the Cicada puzzles to find people who have skills in codes and computer safety.

Resolution

The first puzzle in 2013 was solved by Marcus Wanner. He explained that people who solved the puzzles were asked questions about their support for free information, online privacy, and opposition to censorship. Those who answered well were invited to a private forum, where they were asked to create and complete a project that supported the group's goals. Marcus did not complete his work on a method to decode messages, and the website was taken down. "Nox Populi," another winner, shared her experience with the project on her YouTube channel, which has the same name. The channel's description says: "A series by one of the 2013 winners of the Cicada 3301 puzzle, showing the step-by-step solving process and discussing a more realistic, fact-based view of the organization." Today, she helps manage community activities about Cicada 3301 on a Discord server. Other groups of solvers still meet on message boards and forums.

The Cicada 3301 puzzles used many types of communication, including the Internet, telephone calls, original music, bootable Linux CDs, digital images, physical paper signs, and pages from unpublished books written in runes. Two songs, "The Instar Emergence" and "Interconnectedness," were included with the puzzles. However, neither song was part of a regular music collection, and the composers or performers are unknown. Cicada 3301 also created a book called Liber Primus (Latin for "First Book"), which has many pages, only some of which have been decoded. The puzzles used many different methods to hide or encrypt information and referenced books, poems, artwork, and music. Each puzzle was signed with the same special digital key to prove it was real.

Allegations of illegal activity

In 2012, the Investigative Police (PDI) in the Los Andes Province of Chile said that Cicada 3301 is a "hacker group" and did things that broke the law. Cicada 3301 answered this by sending a message signed with a special security method called PGP, which said they did not do anything illegal.

In July 2015, a group that called itself "3301" broke into the computer system of Planned Parenthood. However, this group was not connected to Cicada 3301. Later, Cicada 3301 sent another PGP-signed message saying they were not linked to this group and did not support the group's use of their name or symbols. The group that hacked Planned Parenthood also said they were not connected to Cicada 3301.

Legacy and popular culture

In 2014, the United States Navy created a secret code challenge inspired by the Cicada 3301 puzzles. This challenge was named Project Architeuthis.

A 2014 episode of the television show Person of Interest, titled "Nautilus," included a large-scale game similar to the Cicada 3301 puzzles. Both involve a series of global secret code challenges. However, the game in the episode uses images of a nautilus shell instead of the cicada symbol. The show's creator, Jonathan Nolan, and producer, Greg Plageman, said in an interview that Cicada 3301 influenced the episode. They explained that they were inspired by the concept of Cicada 3301 and incorporated it into a story connected to their show.

The Cicada 3301 group is the subject of the 2021 comedy-thriller film Dark Web: Cicada 3301. Directed by Alan Ritchson, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Joshua Montcalm, the film features actors Jack Kesy, Conor Leslie, Ron Funches, Kris Holden-Ried, and Andreas Apergis. The movie follows a hacker who joins Cicada's recruitment game while avoiding the National Security Agency (NSA).

The Cicada 3301 puzzles are an important part of the visual novel Anonymous;Code.