Cicada 3301 - solution.
One such game was held in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Each time, anyone with internet access could try their hand. The chain of riddles began from resources such as 4chan, Reddit and Twitter and stretched further, gradually taking applicants into the depths of the network. From one riddle to another they had to interpret the mysterious messages of the organizers; look for hidden messages in literary, artistic and musical works; solve ciphers, ancient and modern. Several times the applicants came across telephone numbers, and further instructions were given by a voice on the other end of the line.
The scale of each of the three games played was enormous; chains of tasks have been carefully crafted; and the tasks themselves differed in variety both in topic and in complexity. Given such a high level of preparation, it is hard to imagine that the organizers created their competition in 2012 from scratch. Most likely, they have already held similar games somewhere. These games probably had similar tasks and were just as open to all sorts of participants, but took place on a smaller scale and in one specific location. Let's try to find such a place...
Melbourne University is one of the oldest in Australia and according to some rankings is considered the best on the continent. The university has a large number of student communities. One of them is Melbourne University Mathematics and Statistics Society, or MUMS for short. Its members organize training seminars and olympiads, arrange nights of quizzes and board games, publish the Paradox magazine, but the club's most interesting area of activity is the annual Puzzle Hunt game.
The game was released in 2004. The first public mention of it can be found in the second issue of Paradox of the same year. In his foreword the community president announced the week of mathematics and mentioned, that "there have even been rumours of a maths-style Scav-Hunt-like competition." More specific information contained the last page of the magazine.
The top of the page was occupied by a large community logo. In another issue of Paradox you can see its description: "While the exact origin of the MUMS logo is shrouded in mystery, the inspiration it drew on is obvious, merging as it does two of the most well-known mathematical concepts: the symbol for infinity and the Mobius band." The week opened with a seminar and a gallery dedicated to Maurits Escher. One day was devoted to the honours information session and one more to university olympiad in mathematics. The Puzzle Hunt event took place throughout the week. The organizers responsible for this innovation could be found on the community members page. At the top of the list was a person who is currently widely known. The position of vice president was held by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
It probably comes as a surprise to most readers of Paradox that Julian Assange, at the centre of so much media attention over the last few months, is a former MUMS Vice President. Yet it was not so long ago that Julian was striding the hallways of the Richard Berry building, attending classes in Russell Love, or hanging out in the (old) MUMS room. The lack of awareness of Julian’s link with MUMS is possibly due to the general aura of secrecy that shrouds Julian’s life. Or perhaps it is the fact that Julian only spent a few short years at Melbourne University, and in the end left without ever graduating. Whichever the case, Paradox seeks to set the record straight and provide a full account of Julian’s time in MUMS. For those learning of this connection for the first time, and even for those who are not, Paradox hopes you enjoy the article."
Assange's most significant contribution to the society was establishing the Melbourne University Puzzle Hunt. The seeds of the Puzzle Hunt were sown one day when Julian sent an email to the MUMS committee commenting on how impressive he found the MIT Mystery Hunt, and how he thought MUMS could pull off something similar. Initial scepticism about the prohibitive amount of work required was soon drowned out by Julian’s unbridled enthusiasm, and it wasn’t long before the idea got off the ground. Fellow organisers recall that Julian’s ‘programming prowess was invaluable in the early years of the Puzzle Hunt’, that Julian was ‘responsible for our media strategy which resulted in the huge participation levels; a lot more people signed up for Puzzle Hunt than we anticipated’, and that Julian had the main ideas for the storyline.
Those who decided to participate in the new community project could find all the necessary information on the site dedicated to the game. The home page announced that "$200 prize buried under Melbourne University!" The center described the main storyline, the disappearance of John Howard (Australian Prime Minister at the time). Below was a brief description of the game.
"The Melbourne Uni Puzzle Hunt is open to the public It is a competition that combines lateral thinking and broad general knowledge in a fun week-long event. Three or four new puzzles are released each day of the hunt together with hints for previous puzzles. Answers can be submitted at any time before the treasure is found. Cash prizes are awarded to the team who finishes the hunt first, and to the next two teams with the highest scores."
More information could be found in the answers to Frequently Asked Questions. They demonstrated the openness and flexibility of the game. Teams of up to 10 people were allowed to participate. It was possible to participate if you are not related to the University of Melbourne. It was possible to participate if you are not in the city of Melbourne. In this case, if your team manages to complete the tasks first, the organizers are ready to appoint the highest scoring team physically residing in Melbourne to act as your proxy in digging up the treasure. You can enter solo. And the organizers assured that if you consult with friends, google and the library you still have a decent chance of winning. You can join the game at any time. Even if you are busy most of the week, you will still have interest. Hints available for previous tasks will help you quickly close the distance to the leaders.
Next on the menu of the site was the Puzzle solving guide.
"There will be puzzles that relate to a wide range of areas. The key to solving a puzzle may be the cracking of a code, the recognition of a quotation from a work of literature, a piece of general knowledge or a pun. Perhaps a weird image will be given as the puzzle, and the image must be laid on top of a famous work of art to indicate a particular object. Perhaps the letters of the puzzle must be converted to Morse code and read like that. The possibilities are endless!
You may worry that there have been several billion paintings over the last few millenia. How can you tell which one to try? We won't be demanding that you try each painting individually. If it seems that you do not have all the information needed to solve the puzzle, then you have probably not used all the information in the puzzle. Have a good look at the title, the blurb, the introductory quotation...
If you are struggling for ideas to solve a code, try the following: Caesar shifts, Rot 13, converting letters to numbers, converting numbers to letters, Beale ciphers, look for letters with unusually high frequencies, see if the letters themselves are perhaps irrelevant, and the message is in their arrangement, try the Enigma code... If you don't know what these things are, try reading The Code Book by Simon Singh -- It may help, and if not, it is a very entertaining read!
If the puzzle looks a little more arty, you may need some people with a bit of topical expertise on your team! If you don't have such valuable team members you may consider getting some, or trying to gain some expertise in the area yourself. If stuck on any problem, then Google is there to help -- it may well prove an invaluable resource."
It is interesting to note that in his another well-known book called Fermat's Last Theorem Simon Singh mentions the connection between cicadas and prime numbers. He speaks of two species of these insects, which have a life cycle of 13 and 17 years, and gives the theory that such a long life cycle, which is a prime number, has given cicadas an evolutionary advantage over the parasite, which has a shorter life cycle.
After the guide was the section Puzzle Hunt structure. Its supreme organising principle was thematic consistency. In total, the competition included 5 acts, each of which could have up to 4 scenes. Each scene contained one puzzle. Every day of the hunt a new act was to come out. Starting from the second day of the game, consecutive hints to the puzzles of the previous acts were released. The early acts were simpler than later ones. All acts were thematically connected, and each act and each scene moved the script forward.
Each act was given a title and a number, followed by a mysterious and frequently misleading quote from literary sources. As an example, an excerpt from a song by an Australian rock band was given: "Somebody's out there, somebody's waiting Somebody's trying to tell me something" - Midnight Oil, 10 to 1. Each act was to contain an introductory narrative setting the stage for the scenes. The narrative was to be conducted in the second person in a mysterious and shadowy tone.
The scene could contain additional narrative that framed the task and built it into the script. Each task had to be believable as some kind of found object or question posed to the hunter by dramatic personae. As a consequence, the puzzles contained no instructions.
The answer to each task was a word in the dictionary, or a series of conjoined words. This means numerical puzzles must have some way of translating their answer to words. Each task was accompanied by 3 hints in order according to the amount of information they revealed. Hints were also presented in the second person.
After that, it was convenient to get acquainted with Puzzle Hunt Rules in the corresponding section. The first goal of the game was to find the hidden object specified in it. The second goal was to score as many points as possible. To achieve it, one had to solve tasks, spending a minimum number of days and, as a result, hints on them. The teams were allowed to use any available sources of information, including the internet and other people. In total, the game consisted of 5 sets of puzzles. Each day of the hunt opened 1 set for the participants. Each of the next three days after receiving the set gave one hint to the puzzles that were included in it. Both sets and hints for them could be obtained either directly from the MUMS room or via email. It was possible to provide and check the answers to the puzzles through the site at any time. Guesses accross all puzzles were limited to 100 per day. The scoring stopped after the first team managed to extract the hidden object and deliver it to the organizers. This team received the major prize. The rest of the places were awarded based on the points scored. Initially, 4 points were given for each puzzle. However, for each hint available, the value of the task was reduced by 1 point. The main prize was $200. The rewards for second and third place were $60 and $40, respectively.
Hunt began on the first day of the mathematical week. It was Monday, September 13, 2004. Its press release was given on the same day. Among other things, it has Assange's comment: “We’re really trying to show people that maths and stats is not only about numbers and formulas. On a larger scale, it’s about thinking clearly and deeply to try to solve a problem.” It also indicated that "over 100 teams are already hard at work trying to solve the puzzle, leading them closer to the highly desired $200 haul."
In the Credits section, you could see who took part in the creation of the game. Julian Assange was the first on the list. He was responsible for the plot and script. A little lower was the correspondence between the name of the puzzle and its creator. Assange was again the first and was listed as the author of 6 puzzles, more than anyone else. Let's take a look at this tasks.
His task for the first act, which opened the hunt, was called Surstromming. This is the name of the Swedish national product, which is a fermented herring. It referred to the English idiom red herring, which means false trail. In the puzzle was given a secret document, which dealt with a well-known politician. At first glance, the description pointed to George W. Bush, but the game's website did not accept such an answer. All because there was a double bottom in the riddle. The word Christian was to be interpreted not as referring to Christianity, but as the name Christian. In this case, the description matched the Australian politician Kim Beasley, whose middle name is Christian. His name was an answer.
Julian's first assignment for the second act was musical. It was called Score. It was given a musical notation, consisting of two lines. Below was an empty line in the key of C major. The first two lines were to be transposed into the key of the third line. In this case, the letter designations of the notes formed a phrase. The task was about the verb from this phrase. It was the answer to the riddle.
His second riddle in this act was called Abstact(ion). The text of the task was like the beginning of a scientific article on astrophysics. In the archive of scientific articles, which is freely available on the internet, you can indeed find an article with the same title and, at first glance, the same abstract. However, the abstract in the task was obtained by replacing some of the original words in such a way as not to distort the meaning. It was necessary to compare two texts and find these alternative words. Taken together, they pointed to the fictional creature that was the clue.
Assange's task for the third act was called Caesar Cipher. It contained text, the lines of which followed in reverse order from right to left. It was possible to reflect them in the usual arrangement, and then the text was an excerpt from William Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar. This was another red herring, because the Caesar cipher was not used in the assignment. In the passage, it was easy to notice additional spaces in the text. To solve the riddle, one had to take one letter following each such gap. These letters formed a phrase with a code word, which was the answer.
There were two more Assange assignments in the fourth act. The first of them was called Platonic. It was about Platonic solids or regular polyhedra, one of which is a cube. The pattern given in the task should have been interpreted as a Rubik's cube. In some cells of the cube additional letters were inscribed. To get a phrase out of them, you had to solve a cube. The phrase spoke of a mythical hero. The answer to the task was his name.
Julian's last assignment was called Disc. It contained very little text and a long series of digits: 37249588852282552285743302297396100822355179407163315972232664422849771058311. The series should be perceived as one large number. This number had to be factorized into primes, which can be done in the only way. There were seven multipliers in total. After that, each of them had to be translated into a number system with base 26. Such a base means that not 10, but as many as 26 characters are used to write numbers. This corresponds to the number of letters in the English alphabet. If you designate the characters with the corresponding letters, then 7 numbers turned into 7 words that formed a phrase. The last word of the phrase was the answer to the task.
It's not hard to find similarities between tasks of mysterious community and Assange's puzzles, such as extracting a message from a piece of music and factoring a large number into primes.
The hunt ended with a Meta Puzzle. In order to solve it, it was necessary to combine the answers to all previous tasks in a special way. The answer was an email address with the title "further instructions await" (furtherinstructionsawait@hotmail.com) and a password for it.
Hunt lasted 7 full days and ended on Monday next week. The competition was won by a group of participants with name Team Room 106. This team consisted of 9 people. It was comprised of statistics honours students, two statistics lecturers, a computer programmer and a musician. They solved the last riddle on the night from Sunday to Monday and went to the specified coordinates to the campus garden. The desired $200 prize was buried under a garden gnome, and at 2:42 a.m. it was brought to the surface.
The results of the game were summed up in the next issue of Paradox. In total, more than 200 teams (some 627 people) managed to participate in the hunt, including ones from faraway places like Sydney and Singapore. There were made some interesting notes about the game. For example, some competitors lost all shame when faced with a significant mental challenge. So, among the answers submitted on the puzzle hunt answer-checking system, there were such as “monkeyspankingpoodle”, “himumsroom. . .anyhintsforthemetta?. . .carn,justalittleone?” and “zpsegwwippbctcdkia”. There was also a note about the participant, who decided to take a more ‘creative’ approach to solving puzzles. Putting his skills to the ultimate test he hacked into the answer submission system by a clever mix of local knowledge and good guesswork. However, the participant was honest, he reported his discovery to the organizers, and the problem was fixed. The task "Disk", compiled by Assange, also was not left without attention. Due to its difficulty, it's no wonder a number of teams called it ‘evil’. Even for the Team Room 106 this puzzle has become a serious obstacle. However, another contestant, who was going solo at that stage, had the goods and delivered them to Team Room 106 in return for a place on their illustrious team. The Puzzle Hunt was so successful, that the community president expressed his confidence that the event will find itself a permanent fixture on the MUMS calendar. Therefore, those who missed out on the fun of the game this time should not be upset - you can always compete the following year.
Since then, the game has become an annual tradition. In 2005 Assange also took part in its organization, but in a more modest role. In the Credits, he was not listed in the main team of organizers, but was in the Extras section. He participated in the compilation of two puzzles.
The task Sleuth was based on the detective board game Cluedo. It was much more voluminous than Assange's other puzzles and contained a lot of irrelevant information.
The task Cacophony was musical. It contained 8 lines of notes. These lines were taken from the musical works of various famous composers. The first letters of their surnames, taken together and interpreted as the names of notes, corresponded to one of the musical modes. Its name was the answer to a riddle.
It is also worth mentioning the original announcement of the game this year, which was made in the form of a stereogram. This time, 620 people, comprising 269 teams, took part in the hunt. The winner was the same team as in the previous game, although now it was called Team Room 187.
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Somewhat later, when WikiLeaks was actively functioning, Assange sent an email to all Puzzle Hunt participants. It started as follow: "Hello Puzzle Hunters. I am Julian, founder of the Melbourne University Puzzle Hunt and president of the Wikileaks advisory board. I am looking for good people, courageous people, intelligent people to help develop and run an international leaked document analysis & essay competition..." In email he said that they are "drowning in secret documents," and suggested that a competition be established to analyze them. This idea failed to materialize; however, apparently, this was not Julian Assange's last message to the MUMS community...
In the message the game's mysterious organizers provided some information about themselves, including their main beliefs and goals. There were also several questions for participants to determine, whether they shared their views.
One of the winners of the game in 2013 also shared a note with an invitation message from the organizers. This message was not modified and contained a cryptographic signature that confirmed its authenticity. Its content was practically the same as the 2012 message, which suggests that it is also genuine.
In 2012, the year the mysterious community emerged, a book by Julian Assange entitled Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet was published. The book is based on a dialogue between Julian and his supporters, which took place on March 20, 2012 in the UK, where Assange was under house arrest at the time. The content of this book are fully consistent with the main beliefs and goals of the mysterious organizers, which they set out in their messages.
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