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Whenever this comes up, I'm reminded of this series: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codename_Icarus http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301116/ Very popular with the teens in my family with fantasies of being whisked away 'cause they're just so damn smart.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are not missing something the author has obviously mixed up the "dark web" and tor.
I think the author got it right and d23 hid that in the ellipsis. >TOR, short for The Onion Router, is an obscure routing network that allows anonymous access to the “darknet” — the vast, murky portion of the Internet that cannot be indexed by standard search engines. >Estimated to be 5,000 times larger that the “surface” web , it’s in these recesses that you’ll find human-trafficking rings, black market drug markets…
The newspaper article has basically one source. The Wikipedia article dates from the day the newspaper article was published, and only has the article (and a reprint) as its sources.
http://uncovering-cicada.wikia.com doesn't seem to have any activity from more than 6 days ago.
I'm really not a cyber-sleuth like the guy in the story, but the first two pages of Google didn't show anything from before 11/26/2013.
I'm sure the puzzles are engaging, but this looks like fake buzz.
I've visited HN every day for years. How the hell is this the 1st time I've ever heard of this?
> "a robotic voice told them to find the prime numbers in the original image. By multiplying them together, the solvers found a new prime"
Excuse me?
> "TOR is an obscure routing network that allows anonymous access to the “darknet” — the vast, murky portion of the Internet that cannot be indexed by standard search engines. Estimated to be 5,000 times larger that the “surface” web, it’s in these recesses that you’ll find human-trafficking rings, black market drug markets and terrorist networks"
Sure... the "surface" web is just the tip of the iceberg, right? Journalism at its best.
By multiplying them together, the solvers found a new prime... Huh?
-- Sandeep Junnarkar, CNET News.com August 9, 2002
Color me skeptical, but it seems like bullshit to me. The newspaper article has basically one source. The Wikipedia article dates from the day the newspaper article was published, and only has the article (and a reprint) as its sources. http://uncovering-cicada.wikia.com doesn't seem to have any activity from more than 6 days ago. I'm really not a cyber-sleuth like the guy in the story, but the first two pages of Goo…
[0] https://github.com/bibanon/bibanon/wiki/Cicada-3301-wiki
The hilarious part is that all of these "geniuses" are being tricked into spending tons of time on a puzzle that has no solution or end.
Its not wasted time if you enjoy doing it.
So, what are chances that TOR website was made from the start to announce that "talented" individuals had been found? And rumors about emails were just circulated by organizers.