Cicada 3301 the most elaborate and mysterious puzzle of the internet age. Listed as one of th top 5 unsolved mysteries of the internet by The Washington Post. Many speculated that the function of cicada 3301 puzzle is to recruit highly intelligent individual, and a recruitment tool for the NSA, CIA, MI6, or a cyber mercenary group. And others have claimed cicada 3301 is an alternate reality game, but the fact that no company or individual has taken credit or tried to monetize it, combined with the fact that no known individuals that solved the puzzles have ever come forward to prove its function.
The first internet puzzle started on january 4, 2012, and ran from approximately one month. Second round began one year later on january 4, 2013, and a third round following the confirmation of a fresh clue posted on twitter on january 4, 2014. The stated intent was to recruit inteligent individuals by presenting a series of puzzles which werw to be solve. No new puzzles were published on january 4, 2015. However, a new clue was posted on twitter on january 5, 2016 in april 2017 another PGP signed message was found:beware false paths. Always verify PGP signature from 7A35090F. That message explicity denies the validity of any unsigned puzzle, as recently as april 2017.
The cicada 3301 clues use many different communication media including, internet, telephone, original music, bootable, linux CDs, digital images, physical paper signs,and pages of of unpublised cryptic books. In addition to using many varying techniques to encrypt, encode, or hide data these clues also referenced a wide variety of books, poetry, artwork and music. Each clue has been signed by the same GnuPG private key tu confirm authenticity. And clues appears in many different locations around the world like Russia, Japan, United states, South korea, France and more... If you want to solve cicada 3301 you need not just a intelligent or genius mind you also need patience a lot of time and a lot of money....