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The Internet mystery that has the world baffled

montrealgazette.com

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Re: The Internet mystery that has the world baffled

#51

Post by TrainedMonkey »

JackFr wrote: post #43

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…

There are claims of few reddit messages from 2012 on that wikia site. Can anyone confirm that?

Re: The Internet mystery that has the world baffled

#52

Post by hkolek »

JackFr wrote: post #43

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…

Interesting. I think you're on to something here. The wikia stuff seems to have been created in August 2013. The subreddit /r/cicada appears to be 11 month old, but the article implies that Eriksson discovered it in the beginning of 2012. And it's virtually empty. Hmmm...

Edit: oh well, nevermind. A google search between 1/1/2010 and 1/1/2012 returns plenty of stuff, for example a discussion [1] on the xkcd forums from January 2012.

[1] http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=79579

Re: The Internet mystery that has the world baffled

#53

Post by zoom »

gesman wrote: post #30

Mostly it amuzes [and targets] people who feel a never ending desire to prove their own worth by taking tests, and going through ladders, games and rules imposed by others, presumably "smarter and more powerful". Someone has to say loudly "who gives a shit about this crap" and just move on.

It's mysterious. Rarely does one say this about js, or ruby.

Re: The Internet mystery that has the world baffled

#54

Post by clarry »

fchollet wrote: post #45

Fascinating story, but that article reads like the journalist took troll stories from 4c as sources. Seriously, whoever wrote this appears to be clueless. > "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…

> > "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.

They seem to have confused some concepts. But the deep web isn't something mythical made up by 4chan trolls or science fiction writers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Web

Re: The Internet mystery that has the world baffled

#56

Post by krazydad »

JackFr wrote: post #43

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…

This mental floss article is a year old.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/31932/chasing-cicada-explorin...

Re: The Internet mystery that has the world baffled

#57

Post by moocowduckquack »

fchollet wrote: post #45

Fascinating story, but that article reads like the journalist took troll stories from 4c as sources. Seriously, whoever wrote this appears to be clueless. > "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…

Excuse me?

Is a Daily Telegraph writer, don't expect scientific literacy.

I remember reading an article about Fred Hoyle, in a copy of the Telegraph that I found on a train, where they described him as a 'famous astrologer', so them not understanding what a prime number is doesn't really surprise me.

Re: The Internet mystery that has the world baffled

#58

Post by krazydad »

krazydad wrote: post #56
JackFr wrote: post #43

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…

This mental floss article is a year old. http://mentalfloss.com/article/31932/chasing-cicada-explorin...

However, the "original" PNG image linked in the article does not contain the plain-text described in the article (at least, not visible in my hex editor). The pixels do contain some artifacts in the lower bits, though.

Re: The Internet mystery that has the world baffled

#59

Post by cheald »

LogicalBorg wrote: post #24
mhb wrote: post #17

By multiplying them together, the solvers found a new prime... Huh?

According to http://www.onlineconversion.com/prime.htm , the number 845145127 is not prime since it has the factor 503. So the sentence should read "By multiplying them together, the solvers found a new number...".

The "huh" is that if you multiply any two non-one numbers together, the result can not be prime since the two input numbers are factors of the resultant number.

Re: The Internet mystery that has the world baffled

#60

Post by cortesoft »

JackFr wrote: post #44
pdx wrote: post #7

I've visited HN every day for years. How the hell is this the 1st time I've ever heard of this?

Cause it's fake. AFAICT Google doesn't show anything earlier than 11/26/2013.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/31932/chasing-cicada-explorin...

From a year ago.

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