CHAPTER 16
— TO SHORTEN the description of this crypto— steganographic journey — continued Igor Zumerick, — these fourteen messages resulted in two, each with a code for an obscure medieval Celtic manuscript called, Mabinogion, and a poem by William Gibson, writer and creator of the concept "cyberpunk", called Agrippa, whose codes contained in these texts led to an address on the Darknet that, after a certain number of hits, went offline forever. Until then, there was a lot of speculation — what was it all about: a big nerd, making fun of everyone? An ARG?
— What is an ARG? — Morant asked.
— The acronym for Alternative Reality Game.
— Some cyber mercenary group? — Or is all this mass of experience and data being run and leveraged by some bank that works with cryptocurrency?
— It is possible, however, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin was created in 2009 without much fuss, I find it very difficult for anyone to reach that, for something that at the time was almost worthless.
— Exactly for that, to attract attention.
— I think it's unlikely, I solved the riddles and I can say that there is nothing related to cryptocurrencies, the fact is that from 2014 onwards, the new riddles have adopted an increasingly mystical theme, let's say: an occult book by Aleister Crowley, a Kabbalistic code of runes, a book by Ralph Emerson on self— sufficiency and transcendence, and a strange book called Liber Primus, which says that prime numbers are sacred and everything is encrypted — the last page closes with a — magic square— , full of numbers, whose sum of all rows, columns and diagonals gives 1033, (3301 in reverse) whose meaning has not been discovered until now.
— Crazy thing indeed.
— Cicada 3301 — has been called the — biggest mystery on the Internet —, deserving a top 5 list of — Unsolved Internet Mysteries — , according to The Washington Post. What first stands out in this episode is its dynamic double impact: virality and replication. Just as predicted in 1947 by Gordon Allport and Leo Postman in their — Psychology of Rumor — the ambiguity element is the multiplier factor of a rumor's reach — the driving force of Cicada 3301, is the ambiguous meaning:
— Truth or lie? Trolling or something serious? The unexpected and the bizarre? In fact, a dominant trait from viral YouTube videos to memes on social networks, seems to be the fuel of this cryptographic puzzle.
Zumerick nodded.
— If the breaking of the encryption of the Nazi Enigma machine, by mathematician Alan Turing in World War II, had an explicit and epic purpose, the Allied victory in a watershed in history, with Cicada 3301, the fuel that also fuels the dilutes: the ambiguity that plunges him into the banality of a meaningless event. At the same time, its power of replication: a quick search on national and international websites about the episode, one can see the replication of the same texts and information, for example, the supposed disappearance of people in the networks, after solving certain puzzles proposed by the Cicada 3301. Abducted by the mysterious organization? Did the new recruits go to some parallel universe?
'Have they reached this point?'
— Go for it... my fiancee was one of the people who disappeared at the time and I haven't heard from her until today.
Morant couldn't believe it...
— But Cicada 3301 hides a minimalist principle that is the basis of the narcissistic and nihilistic culture of today: the — I did it— philosophy. In a series of travel chronicles by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard about his impressions of American culture and everyday life, he defined the spectacle of the New York Marathon as the spectacle of "I did it" thousands of people running alone, without the spirit of victory, only to make it through the course and exhausted to collapse onto the Central Park lawn and scream:
— I I got it!
— Fulfilling the marathon path just as an exercise in self— retesting that you really exist.
— Just like hundreds of dozens of people climbing Everest, just to prove to themselves that they can do it…a performance in the void.
— Yes, Cicada 3301 seems to be an event that falls into that same category: an intellectual performance and fetishist logic, of delirium in the void, of the exaltation of a feat without consequences.
— So far...
— Yes, that's exactly what worries me...
— WE HAVE A MURDER committed by that organization.
— According to what they said in the previous code, this is actually a sacrifice.
— I'm not in a geeky mood today, Zumerick...
Father Zumerick huffed indignantly, already knowing his boss.
— Apparently you were involved in this shit, weren't you?
He reluctantly agreed.
— Let's say I participated in the initial selection, but before I was recruited I made a mistake helping a friend from college and ended up being banned from the final selection.
Morant sighed, looking distinctly uninterested in college sex life nerds.
— The second round started a year later on January 4, 2013, and a third round, the 2014 one was not resolved until July 2015 and the 2015 one has already been released. They believe that Cicada — members— already predicted the exact number of people who would enter and there were a maximum of 7 individuals, this is already related to the name itself, because 3+3+0+1=7, for what was disclosed until Now in 2012, 3 people got it and in 2013, ditto, so far no one got the one from 2014.
— The 0,— said Benjamin Morant, proud that he understood.
Zumerick condescended and continued:
— And the one from 2015 supposedly only one person would solve, that is: 3, 3, 0.1.
— The stated intention was to recruit — smart people— by presenting a series of puzzles that were to be solved, each one in order, to find the next.
— Exactly, n new puzzles were published on January 4, 2015. The puzzles focused heavily on data security, encryption, and steganography.
— What's your area of expertise, isn't it?
The priest acquiesced.
— What many don't know is that the people who came close to solving the riddles and puzzles of Cicada 3301, say to stay away from these challenges and this organization, that according to some of these people, this organization could be linked to the US government. American, Illuminati's or international terrorists, however, nothing has been confirmed yet.
— That 'still', we can exclude it, can't we?
This time, Igor didn't have the answer to give his boss.
BEN MORANT MADE A FACE to a few friends and Igor showed the result of the decrypted code.
Under the watchful eyes of the prophet and Saint William, who does not rest in his holy place, there will be a sacrifice. And, under the symbol of the great beast, the world will know the truth and its own end, in nine days...
Good luck
3301
— What the fuck is this?
— We can say it's a prophecy.
'Are you really serious?'
Although Ben Morant was not religious at all, he trusted Igor Zumerick, knew his genius.
— We can say that in nine days, something or someone will unravel. And the first event was this one, and by logic, eight other events will happen in succession.
— But who is the prophet and saint William? — I've never heard of the Catholic Church having a saint named William.
— If we talk about the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church, there really is no person sanctified, or canonized by that name, but coming here, and knowing Cicada, it all made sense.
— And who the hell can elect anyone holy besides them? — Never heard of it.
Igor showed the effigy of William Blake.
— For the Gnostic Church, William Blake is a holy man, he was canonized in 1998 and the vast majority of his books sounded more prophetic than poetic, in the mold of Dante Alighieri and John Milton, from whom he was openly inspired and venerated.
— So, according to your text, this wasn't murder, it was sacrifice.
— Exactly!
'And what shall we do now?'
— We'll have to follow the new leads.
— Why do we have this string of letters painted on his forehead?
— Maybe you don't recognize it, but this is a well— known number in the rock world, from Iron Maiden's most famous album.
— I only know 666, the number of the beast.
Igor smiled.
— Let's say because of a historical error, it was 666 instead of 616, someone wants people to know that.
— You just said you want to encrypt messages instead of saying them clearly.
— Bingo! We are talking about the most famous cryptography in the world, perhaps of all time, a cryptography that is almost two thousand years old without anyone having solved it.
Ben Morant looked like he didn't understand anything again.
— The most famous codex in the world?
The priest was waiting for the answer and frustrated had to continue...
— Nothing in the Holy Bible has been better known and debated by experts for generations than the last book of the Bible.
— The apocalypse?
— Written by the apostle John Zebedee.