CLASSIC: Cicadas, Ciphers and Codes: The Weird World of Cryptography

For much of recorded history, humans beings have been trying to devise unbreakable codes (and break the codes of their rivals). But is there any truly unbreakable code? And what exactly is Cicada 3301? Join Ben and Matt as they decipher cryptography in this classic episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know, this might date me a little bit, but
my first experience with cryptography was watching that show, that
film A Christmas Story when the kid gets a Dakota ring.
Do you remember that? Yeah, but it was a real letdown.
He like spent you know, got all his box tops
and you know, got sent off for this Dakota ring
and it was It ended up being like an ad

(00:20):
which is kind of a great metaphor for like our
corporate existence on this planet. You know, you think there's
magic in the world. It turns out it's just an ovaltinead. Yeah,
that's right, right. It was a call to drink war
oval team, but it was also a cipher write a code.
And as we recorded this classic episode, there were a

(00:43):
number of exciting, strange, disturbing things happening in the world
of cryptography, and they continued to happen. Right. So before
we go and do a new episode on the latest
the Bleeding Edge of Cryptography, uh, we thought it would
be good to revisit this one, which I think is
mostly do we speak in code? And this one I don't.

(01:05):
I don't. I hope so I hope. So from UFOs
two Ghosts and Government cover Ups History is riddled with
unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the
stuff they don't want you to now. Hello, everyone, welcome
back to stuff they don't want you to know. My

(01:26):
name is Matt and my name is Ben. And today
we're covering all of those cryptic things, the things that
are hidden and encrypted and you're not supposed to know
what it is. That's how you hide the stuff they
don't want you to know. Ben, we're talking about it today,
and specifically we're gonna be talking about Cicada three three
oh one, which is a fascinating story and and whatever

(01:49):
you want to believe it is. I don't know what
it is. Ben, I don't think you know what it is.
Oh man. We have some ideas, some thoughts on it.
I'm sure you do too. So as we're as we're
going through this, we we want you to really tell
us what you think or how how stupid we are
for what we think, or tell us tell us how

(02:10):
you agree or you just disagree. We want to hear
from you. If you were if you were on four
chance threat on b when this first came up, then
let us know. Because of course, one of the big
possibilities for Cicada three three oh one is that it
could be just a massive trolling, trolling effort by somebody

(02:31):
or some group of people with either a lot of money,
a lot of time, some college students they're board. However,
just the effort and kind of the the smart way.
It was done in the cool way, much like an
alternate reality game. I mean, essentially, that's what it was. Um,
I'm a man, I just wish I had the ability

(02:54):
to do that. Oh well you do. You just have
to focus your time and plan ahead before we go
any further. Let's explain what Cicada three three oh one
is for our listeners who haven't seen our video yet.
All right, so back on in January, I think it
was January four, two thousand twelve, there was a post

(03:14):
and it was a it was on four Chan and
what'd you say it was? And it was a message
that said it was a picture, and it said, hey,
there's a message hidden inside this picture. We're we're looking
for intelligent people. UM, come and find us, essentially like

(03:35):
follow the path and you'll find us. And there were
bread crumbs hidden in this picture. There was some information
in the metadata the picture, I believe, which ultimately points
to some websites, and these go to increasingly difficult or
obscure codes and references and puzzles. So when we looked

(03:58):
at some of our photography material, um, you know we
did uh we did an episode on just an intro
to cryptography to build up to go to Cicato, which
has some cryptography involved but also just has some straight
up puzzling stuff. Yeah. Yeah, and references to historic materials,

(04:19):
occult sources. N Mandius was involved at one point. And
the the interesting thing is that this also spills over
into the real world. It's not just online. The big
question has always been what, who and why. Well, let's
go over some of the possibilities and I'll just throw

(04:40):
some out at you. You tell me what you think,
all right, and vice versa. You go absolutely first one
that it's some kind of intelligence agency trial or a recruitment. Uh. Possibly,
I would say, but only possibly in that I could
see a private contractor that's hired by an intelligence agency

(05:03):
doing that. An intelligence agency itself would have a little
bit more difficult time. Case in point, Google and am
I five have both had things like this, you know,
billboards what they said, do you want to join here's
the break this code, and they'll lead you to the website.

(05:24):
And Google at least came out and said that they
didn't get great results or great hires from this. Yeah,
so I can. I can kind of imagine someone who
has enough free time to go through take the effort
that it would take to do that. Okay, I've got
one for you. Yes, all right. What if it's just uh,

(05:45):
some more obnoxious viral marketing. I would say, if it
is some kind of viral marketing, they're they're doing an
ineffective there. They're not doing a great job just because
there's not much branding there besides the Cicada word. And
I don't know if you do what we did, where
you you're just searching the internet and trying to find

(06:07):
more information. There's no game that's kind of related to it.
There's no there's no book or movie. I don't know.
I don't think so, all right, But to your point,
will both feel kind of foolish when Cicada Man three
oh one comes out, you know, in March or something. Yeah, maybe,

(06:28):
but it's it's kind of an early start when you say,
and just because they did it again, and you know,
if you if you if you get to the end,
let's say, let's say you get to all the way
to the end of this crumb trail, allegedly you find
one of these posters that they had up in the

(06:49):
real world in cities all over the United States, and
nobody knows who made it, Like, it's not people who
do make it don't talk about it. There's been one.
I've seen one post of somebody who actually completed the game,
and it was allegedly nobody who completed the game. And well,

(07:10):
let let me throw one back to you, because this
is what this person said. Yeah, he said. It's essentially
a secret organization and secret society of sorts that has
very specific beliefs about philosophy about how the world should be,
and they want to they want to make changes in
the world according to those beliefs. Right, yes, So what

(07:33):
do you think? Um? Is it? Are? You ask me?
Is it possible that that global think tank idea is real? Well? Yeah,
is it real? How plausible is it? Uh? It's it's
totally plausible. I mean, it's totally possible. But it's also
plausible because the world is full of people who start

(07:54):
think tanks like this. You know, whether it's a commune
or some people who get together and say, hey, you
know what we should do, um plant more trees, you know,
or you know, you know what we should do is
kill more eagles. It doesn't necessarily have to be a
good idea. I'm saying people band together for that kind
of stuff all the time because they Everybody likes to

(08:16):
feel like you're they're changing the world, right a group
and part of a group. People love being part of
a group, man. And from this I think it I
think it could be possible. But also also you have
to wonder, all right, let's do the ifs. Big if

(08:37):
if this is true as an if he really received
a letter and it is true, which is a huge if, um,
then that leads us to a second if. And that if,
which is also big, is if these people are really
um actualizing the philosophy that they have. Then that leads

(09:04):
us to a third thing. The only way to see that,
or to measure that, would be to see concrete effects
in the world that are traceable to this group. And
at this point the only thing that's happened that has
been clearly identified as of this group would be the papers,
the paper posters of cicadas um, which is not I

(09:30):
think not the end goal of this group if they
are legit. So with all those caveats in place, it's
it's possible. But I I still don't have enough information
to say one way or the other. Here's what I
had a conversation with my friend Nick the other day
and he, uh, he came up with an interesting idea.

(09:53):
What if this is kind of a snare. It's a
it's a trap catch the best and the brightest hackers
that maybe that some group feels would be anti their establishment.
Let's see these, you know. Well, that's that's pretty and yeah,

(10:13):
once you get to the end of the tunnel, it's
bye bye because nobody knows you got there. M hmmm,
it's not only just straight to Guantanamo. Oh boy, well
that's a fascinating idea because it makes me think of
a pretty scary what if. Um So, people used to
think it was crazy that the n s A would
be monitoring everything you do on the internet. Every they

(10:36):
know what pornography look at. Incognito mode is not saving you, guys, No,
it's not. But it's fine unless you're into something illegal.
I'm sure it's just dirt that will be kept on
you in case you go the wrong way. Isn't that
the how the conspiracy theory goes. Yeah, the good thing
that it takes solis in is that, um, unfortunately, oh,

(11:00):
a lot of people look at porn, so it's not
that big a deal. Just don't feel too bad, guy
listening to this right now while you're looking at porn.
It's okay, You're you're gonna be okay. Don't worry about it.
It's not. It's weird though. That's a weird situation right now.
I am really sorry to call you out like this,
but you know who you are. Be cool, man, Be cool.

(11:21):
But the reason that we bring up this idea of this,
this sort of panopticon situation wherein someone's entire life online
and in the real world can be monitored, is to
say that with this information, it is possible, again possible,
maybe not plausible, that an intelligence agency would be able

(11:44):
to take the metadata, construct the um the perfect demographic thing,
maybe to catch just one person. So maybe they know
enough about a group of people where they where they
were able to build a profile and they said, well,
the kind of person that we are looking to catch

(12:05):
has a love of Victorian literature, a little bit of
a maybe a rational libertarian bent. Uh has a love
of puzzles. They like these animals, they most are they're
most likely to like, you know, because is it is
it plausible? Now, it's a lot of work. Is it possible?

(12:25):
For sure? And that to me, um makes for at
least a very good short story. Yeah. The lesson is
just don't do anything to piss off UH enough for
them to want to target you and spend the time
and effort. Right, And you have to wonder, if Cicada
three three oh one is real, then are are they

(12:47):
going to be gunning for us? I don't think so,
because if anything, we're just we're just fascinated. And if
it's just some eleven year old kid brilliant and his
internet friends, then uh, that's amazing. And you know what
if it's if it's like a forty year old person
and or a group of four year old people, it's

(13:08):
still it's still fascinating. Because these posters went up around
the world globally, and that's the most impressive part, you know,
from soeul Korea Soul South Korea to u y e
to what we should look up and see if you're
how how close they were to embassies, I'd be interested
to know. Yeah, how close each one of those posters

(13:31):
was to an embassy or if there was a really
at the pattern, because I haven't truly looked at the
pattern of where these things were playing. Yeah, we weren't
able to do that for this episode. But but if
they if there was any intelligence agency related to this, uh,
they sure as hell would not put it near their
own embassies. Oh yeah, absolutely, So you're thinking these are

(13:54):
all near the U. S. Embassies must be the Russians.
Well right, I mean I don't know like that, I
don't know. But one last thing I know, we have
to wrap up ben Uh. I actually have a small
team of guys that are going to be trying if
it happens again in early January, who are going to
be trying to solve it? Um. I am not going

(14:17):
to be very helpful on this team, but I'm going
to be on along for the journey to see what happens.
Oh wow, that's awesome. Maybe you can come back and updates.
Maybe if they're cool with it, bring bring one of
them in for an interview. Oh yeah, absolutely, it's actually
that guy I was telling you about Nick. Okay, yeah,
Nick the white hat cool alright, Well, as long as

(14:41):
he's a good wizard, Uh, then let's let's have him
on this show if something happens with Cicada. Uh. The
reason that people think that January four thirteam may bring
something new from this group is that they've been relatively quiet.
Apparently they if the puzzles are real, they've been contacting
the people figuring it out directly rather than sending open statements. Yeah,

(15:03):
they make them open up a brand new email UM
that's never been used before so they can have contact. Yes,
And uh, this idea, this guess, this speculation is based
entirely on the cyclical nature of the UM statements, right,
because the January four a few years ago to January

(15:23):
four in the coming year. So we will have to
do one of my least favorite things, which is wait. Yep,
we'll just have to wait, and you know how I
hate that. But uh, but in the meantime, we're going
to be off working on some other fascinating things that
we hope you enjoy as much as we do. And well,

(15:45):
in some cases, enjoy is not the right word. But
I'm more big the fascination with uh in the meantime, Matt.
Where can people find us? You can find us on
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(16:07):
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(16:29):
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