The internet mystery that has the world baffled
For the past two years, a mysterious online organisation has been setting the world's finest code-breakers a series of seemingly unsolveable problems. But to what end? Welcome to the world of Cicada 3301
One evening in January last year, Joel Eriksson, a 34-year-old computer analyst from Uppsala in Sweden, was trawling the web, looking for distraction, when he came across a message on an internet forum. The message was in stark white type, against a black background.
“Hello,” it said. “We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck.”
The message was signed: "3301”.
A self-confessed IT security "freak” and a skilled cryptographer, Eriksson’s interest was immediately piqued. This was – he knew – an example of digital steganography: the concealment of secret information within a digital file. Most often seen in conjunction with image files, a recipient who can work out the code – for example, to alter the colour of every 100th pixel – can retrieve an entirely different image from the randomised background "noise”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/10468112/The-internet-mystery-that-has-the-world-baffled.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
I may not see him for ages.
He LOVES this tpe of stuff, and he is wicked smart.
Marvelously fascinating article...many thanks. 
Awesome to see a post that is not only interesting but isn't about rape porn or Kennedy conspiracy theories!
Drink your Ovaltine.
said one commenter about the article...
Plot
A cryptographic code called "Mercury" was created by the National Security Agency and is allegedly so complex that its creators believe no computer on Earth can decipher it. Originally it was created during the Reagan Administration as a test to keep the United States' highest priority secrets under wraps.
One day, the NSA receives a message from a nine-year-old autistic savant named Simon Lynch (Miko Hughes), who calls a telephone number written in the code which was secretly published in a puzzle magazine by two of the creators, Dean Crandell (Robert Stanton) and Leo Pedranski (Bodhi Elfman), to see if anyone could break it.
Crandell and Pedranski's division chief, Lt. Colonel Nick Kudrow (Alec Baldwin) sees the boy's ability to decipher the code as a grave liability. He dispatches an assassin, Peter Burrell (Lindsey Lee Ginter), to murder the boy and his parents, Martin (John Carroll Lynch) and Jenny (Kelley Hazen). link
- The NSA gets some its best ideas from Hollywood. We call it fiction, they call it Item# 1867-J of the Black Budget.
K&R
Here it is:
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