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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 3301One 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, Erikssons 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
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The internet mystery that has the world baffled (Original Post)
jakeXT
Nov 2013
OP
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)1. Interesting story. n/t
Ligyron
(7,592 posts)2. wait, I cracked it!
leads to ACA website development and re-launch team.
ThoughtCriminal
(14,011 posts)7. Wrong!
"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine"
ThoughtCriminal
(14,011 posts)3. Same challenge here
Spoiler: There's no code, just static. Or is it? Let's ask the NSA just in case.
lame54
(35,139 posts)6. I see a sailboat...
with hidden microphones in it
WillyT
(72,631 posts)4. My God... It's Full Of Pixels...
Very cool.
& Rec !!!
Lucky Luciano
(11,242 posts)5. Super cool! nt
supernova
(39,345 posts)8. Is Google hiring again?
They've been known to put out challenging puzzles in a quest to find candidates.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)9. Nerd trolling. nt