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==Introduction and Disclaimer== |
==Introduction and Disclaimer== |
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On February the 6th, 2012, a guest submitted the following email to [http://pastebin.com/RmqxWcnB pastebin], supposedly leaked from 3301/Cicada after solving the 2012 puzzle: |
On February the 6th, 2012, a guest submitted the following email to [http://pastebin.com/RmqxWcnB pastebin], supposedly leaked from 3301/Cicada after solving the 2012 puzzle: |
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| − | 3301 cicada, this has been modified from your orriginal text in order to |
+ | 3301 cicada, this has been modified from your orriginal text in order to |
| + | remove your uber sekret 0hd4y identifications signature. |
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| + | If you think it belongs to any particular applicant it does not; |
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| + | and you DO know what I mean. u mad? |
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| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | < !-- Slightly odified content, in attempt to hide identity of leaker. |
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| + | Cicada sent different (punctuations, sentence structure)email |
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| + | to every receiver, so that any leaks can be backtracked to receiver. --> |
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| − | Congratulations your month of testing has come to an end out of the |
+ | Congratulations your month of testing has come to an end out of the |
| + | thousands who attempted it you are one of only a few who have succeeded. |
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| − | There is one last step although there will not be any hidden codes or |
+ | There is one last step although there will not be any hidden codes or |
| + | secret messages or physical treasure hunts this last step is only |
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| + | honesty we have always been honest with you and we shall continue |
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| + | to be honest with you and we expect you to be honest with us in return. |
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| + | You have all wondered who we are and so we shall now tell you we are |
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| − | 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. |
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| + | an international group we have no name we have no symbol we have no |
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| + | membership rosters we do not have a public website and we do not |
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| + | advertise ourselves we are a group of individuals who have proven |
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| + | ourselves much like you have by completing this recruitment contest |
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| + | and we are drawn together by common beliefs a careful reading of the |
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| + | texts used in the contest would have revealed some of these beliefs |
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| + | that tyranny and oppression of any kind must end that censorship is |
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| + | wrong and that privacy is an inalienable right. |
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| − | We are not a *hacker* group nor are we a *warez* group we do not engage |
+ | We are not a *hacker* group nor are we a *warez* group we do not engage |
| + | in illegal activity nor do our members if you are engaged in illegal |
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| + | activity we ask that you cease any and all illegal activities or decline |
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| + | membership at this time we will not ask questions if you decline however |
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| + | if you lie to us we will find out. |
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| + | You are undoubtedly wondering what it is that we do we are much like |
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| − | 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 and if you choose to accept membership we are happy to have you on-board to help with future projects. |
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| + | a *think tank* in that our primary focus is on researching and developing |
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| + | techniques to aid the ideas we advocate liberty privacy security you |
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| + | have undoubtedly heard of a few of our past projects and if you choose |
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| + | to accept membership we are happy to have you on-board to help with future projects. |
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| − | Please reply to this email with the answers to the next few questions |
+ | Please reply to this email with the answers to the next few questions |
| + | to continue: |
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| − | * Do you believe that every human being has a right to privacy and |
+ | * Do you believe that every human being has a right to privacy and |
| + | anonymity and is within their rights to use tools which help obtain |
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| + | and maintain privacy cash strong encryption anonymity software etc? |
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Anonymous |
Anonymous |
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Counterhash requests that although they will do their best to debunk this email in the following, the ultimate decision as to whether or not you believe this is real or fake has to be made by you. With that out of the way, let's dive right in: |
Counterhash requests that although they will do their best to debunk this email in the following, the ultimate decision as to whether or not you believe this is real or fake has to be made by you. With that out of the way, let's dive right in: |
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| − | =='''The GPG signature'''== |
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| − | The first serious warning bell here is that '''there is no GPG signature'''. The uploader has claimed to have stripped it to 'protect their identity'. In case you are unfamiliar with GPG, please read the [[Gnu Privacy Guard|following article]] which will explain GPG and how it is completely secure in most cases. |
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| + | ==Why this makes sense== |
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| − | Here we'll go off the presumption that the uploader is in fact protecting the identity by removing the signature, in which case it's probably a good idea to mention that Cicada/3301 have NO INCENTIVE to supply a new GPG key to the solvers until they have accepted entry into the group. There is nothing that 3301 can possibly get out of this, so protecting their identity is a stupid reason to display here. Feel free to reupload and replace that text with 'because I'm an obvious troll'. |
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| + | If you go through the revisions for this article, you'll find a full debunking. |
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| − | =='''The Writing Style'''== |
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| + | |||
| − | Even if this message's GPG signature was stripped for a legitimate reason and we decide to trust it, this email is still not trustable because of the writing style. The first thing to note is that in all of 3301's public messages, the author has written in perfect English, excluding one typo in the 2012 puzzle. Even the questions at the end of 2013's puzzle were phrased correctly, with the question mark always being at the end of the sentence. This email, on the other hand, is completely contradictory of the conventions of commas and punctuation, with many of the sentences including areas which were completely lacking in commas. |
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| + | '''I stand corrected. ''' |
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| + | |||
| + | The message initially looks quite odd, as it is badly written, with punctuation missing and no GPG signature attached. One would, as I did, initially assume that the message is an obvious fake. After speaking with members who actually recieved this message, apparently the message was sent out with different punctuation between different solvers. The purpose of this was that the message remained legible, but if it were leaked it could be traced to an individual solver, either by punctuation or GPG key. |
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| + | The brave person who leaked this put multiple copies of his details through the form, and recieved a number of emails. He worked out this pattern and combined the emails to create what we see above. He stripped it of the GPG signature, and merged the punctuation. |
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| − | For example, |
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| − | ...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... |
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| − | if written by 3301, should be the following: |
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| − | ...tell you: We are an international group. We have no name, no symbol, no membership rosters, no public website and we do not advertise ourselves. We are a group... |
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| − | Although this is a weak point, anyone with at least a high school understanding of the English language should be able to concur this email was definitely not written by 3301. |
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| + | The message is probably the only piece of evidence we can go off as to who 3301 is/are. |
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| − | Another interpretation of this and the author's message at the beginning is that 3301 embedded a "signature" in the message's punctuation unique to each recipient and the author ran the text through a program to strip it. |
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| + | I will go about contacting users who recieved this message, and seeing if I can get ahold of a version with a confirmed GPG signature. For the moment: |
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| − | So, on these two main points, it is very easy to conlude that: |
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| − | MYTH: |
+ | MYTH: '''CONFIRMED''' |
Revision as of 04:07, 9 May 2016
Introduction and Disclaimer
On February the 6th, 2012, a guest submitted the following email to pastebin, supposedly leaked from 3301/Cicada after solving the 2012 puzzle:
3301 cicada, this has been modified from your orriginal text in order to remove your uber sekret 0hd4y identifications signature. If you think it belongs to any particular applicant it does not; and you DO know what I mean. u mad? < !-- Slightly odified content, in attempt to hide identity of leaker. Cicada sent different (punctuations, sentence structure)email to every receiver, so that any leaks can be backtracked to receiver. --> ---BEGIN FU ENCODING STRIPPED MESSAGE--- DO NOT SHARE THIS INFORMATION! Congratulations your month of testing has come to an end out of the thousands who attempted it you are one of only a few who have succeeded. There is one last step although there will not be any hidden codes or secret messages or physical treasure hunts this last step is only honesty we have always been honest with you and we shall continue to be honest with you and we expect you to be honest with us in return. 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. We are not a *hacker* group nor are we a *warez* group we do not engage in illegal activity nor do our members if you are engaged in illegal activity we ask that you cease any and all illegal activities or decline membership at this time we will not ask questions if you decline however if you lie to us we will find out. 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 and if you choose to accept membership we are happy to have you on-board to help with future projects. Please reply to this email with the answers to the next few questions to continue: * Do you believe that every human being has a right to privacy and anonymity and is within their rights to use tools which help obtain and maintain privacy cash strong encryption anonymity software etc? * Do you believe that information should be free? * Do you believe that censorship harms humanity? We look forward to hearing from you. 3301 ---END FUUUUUUUUUUU--- We look forward to hearing from you. Anonymous
Counterhash requests that although they will do their best to debunk this email in the following, the ultimate decision as to whether or not you believe this is real or fake has to be made by you. With that out of the way, let's dive right in:
Why this makes sense
If you go through the revisions for this article, you'll find a full debunking.
I stand corrected.
The message initially looks quite odd, as it is badly written, with punctuation missing and no GPG signature attached. One would, as I did, initially assume that the message is an obvious fake. After speaking with members who actually recieved this message, apparently the message was sent out with different punctuation between different solvers. The purpose of this was that the message remained legible, but if it were leaked it could be traced to an individual solver, either by punctuation or GPG key.
The brave person who leaked this put multiple copies of his details through the form, and recieved a number of emails. He worked out this pattern and combined the emails to create what we see above. He stripped it of the GPG signature, and merged the punctuation.
The message is probably the only piece of evidence we can go off as to who 3301 is/are.
I will go about contacting users who recieved this message, and seeing if I can get ahold of a version with a confirmed GPG signature. For the moment:
MYTH: CONFIRMED