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A bit tangential, but I found and contacted the author of Cicada3301 some years ago. They sloppily used a single Google Analytics ID on 2 sites, one of them be
by IAmGraydon 3y ago
A bit tangential, but I found and contacted the author of Cicada3301 some years ago. They sloppily used a single Google Analytics ID on 2 sites, one of them being on an old version of the Cicada3301 site which had been snapshotted by archive.org before they realized their mistake and removed it. I was able to reverse search this ID and found it was also in use on the personal website of a cryptography/security expert who was the Chief Information Security Officer of a contractor who primarily does work for big three-letter agencies in the US. I contacted him on LinkedIn and he denied it, though I very much doubt this was some big coincidence.
- godelski 3y agoSo you won Cicada3301? But they just didn't like how you won?
- IAmGraydon 3y agoYeah that's kind of what I was thinking!
- pcthrowaway 3y agoOr the creator of Cicada took the Google analytics ID of that security expert
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoA bold claim to make, but interesting nevertheless. Did you ever do a writeup on that? I'm not into it myself (I'm not smart enough for puzzles like that), but I can imagine there's obsessive communities around it that would love to know more about this lead.
- IAmGraydon 3y agoI never did a writeup because it seemed to me that the theories may have been true that Cicada3301 was a government program to recruit talent. I didn't want to dox the guy publicly and I also didn't want to piss anyone off at a three-letter agency. This is actually the first time I've ever mentioned this in public, but so much time has passed since the program was active that I think it's probably OK at this point.
- matdoesdev 3y agoI looked it up, here's the Google Analytics ID if anyone's curious: https://builtwith.com/relationships/tag/UA-526724 https://builtwith.com/relationships/tag/UA-526724
- n3rv 3y agoLooks like Dave V. removed all the websites. I wonder if the guy ever though it'd follow him around like this. You're famous Dave!
- greggsy 3y agoHe’s Wikipedia famous, but I’m not sure how relevant he is in the community to warrant it. Maybe he doesn’t actually exist, and this is all a just a ruse? I’d be interested to see if there’s any linkages between contributors to those two pages.
- greggsy 3y agoThat was an interesting rabbit hole. Pretty hard to deny that connection, given their background. It does somewhat ruin the puzzle though, and still doesn't actually solve it.
- IAmGraydon 3y agoYep, that's the one.
- zfxfr 3y agoI remember being fascinated by this Cicada story when it came up. if this is true it really deserves a blog post .
- colineartheta 3y agoI’m fairly certain the owner of the domain is unrelated to the Cicada 3301 challenges beyond hosting a fan site. Their PGP signature is completely missing from the website, and in the words of 3301 itself: all messages will be signed with only their key. Besides, 3301 hosted everything on the dark web, not a clear web site. This is an interesting anecdote, and personally I’ve always thought the challenge was alphabet agency related, but I truly don’t think you found anything beyond a fan boy.