Cicada 3301

Sounds like hacker central to me.

Curious how these people make a living to support their habit.

If it's a legitimate organization, how will they ever vet these global hackers to be sure of their allegiance?

Edward Snowden, hiring manager...pleased to meet you!

Whether a 'legitimate' organization or not, if Cicada is at the top of their game, it should be easy for them to find out everything they need to know about the 'candidate' before there's any reveal of their own identity, or the reason for using this ploy to identify cryptographic talent.

Indeed, depending on their assessment of the candidate, a completely different 'reveal' could be in store.

Those who know don't tell.

Hmm...A search for intelligent life on earth?

Sounds like a fool's errand.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was cooked up by some government. I doubt that the true geniuses will bother with it, but it will probably attract a bunch of wannabees.

"a bunch of wannabees"

Or, Tinkerbells.

thanks, man!

Seems to me, if you were REALLY smart (and gainfully employed) you'd blow these guys efforts off as a waste of time, and keep your mind on the job that pays the bills. This bunch of players seems to take delight in seeing how much time they can make people waste playing THEIR game by THEIR rules.

I don't play by other people's rules. Sometimes it gets me in trouble, sometimes not. But it isn't ever boring, and I've managed to stay employed and making a fair living for 41 years at it.

The grass MIGHT be greener on the other side of the fence, but it might just be the color of my glass's lenses. And it doesn't make any difference HOW green it is, if I can't see the fence, or any solid reason to even look for it.

Seems to me, if you were REALLY smart (and gainfully employed) you'd blow these guys efforts off as a waste of time, and keep your mind on the job that pays the bills. This bunch of players seems to take delight in seeing how much time they can make people waste playing THEIR game by THEIR rules.

You have no clue do you! They would look at your miserable existence with destine! If they are any good at all they are making in the top 1% top earners in their country and not working regular hours. Their biggest challenge is laundering the money they make. They are in it for the money. Hackers haven't made much mischief in decades after they learned how much money they could make.

Identity theft in the world runs at least 8 figures in USDs a year. Who knows what a team of geniuses could do with a bot net of a 100 million zombies under their command.

I bet hackers are making money with your personal computer as I write this.

This looks ominous to me. Cicada3301 is more than likely a recruitment of hackers for the dark side. MI6, NSA and the CIA would never recruit this way. I went through the process for the NSA only a year ago. There were 5 or 6 interviews. I didn't know who was interested in hiring me until the third or 4^th interview. By that time they had completely verified my background. Being a federal contractor for 25 yrs the government knows my background far better than I. They were far more interested in my reliability than in my intelligence.

Hackers have been gaining ground over the 'White hats' for over a decade. The fundamental problems are: 'white hats' are run by managers who are probably more political savvy than technical savvy, the 'white hats' have budget constraints, 'black hats' are probably smarter to much smarter than 'white hats', 'black hats' may share more information than 'white hats', 'black hats' are not constrained by laws they can steal information they need, 'black hats' are usually much more creative and they tend to think outside the box', 'black hats' may actually have more resources than 'white hats'.

While 'black hats' are allowed to think unfettered 'white hats' are forced to conform the wishes of inferior intellect, management. The hackers live in a survival of the fittest on a technical level. 'White hats' depend on politics to survive.

Right now probably at least half the world's computers are infected by at least one bontnet that is not detectable by any AV scan. How do I know this? I don't. What I do know is hackers have little to no problem hacking into 'highly secure' networks, why not an ill protected PC? I do know botnets are using server side polymorphic infections which are undetectable by any means known. Before this technology, 30 million zombie bot net was the largest. Because the bigger they were the more likely they would be discovered it kept the size down. That is not the case now! Once infected there is no cure other than formatting the disk. The new security wave forcing users to be attached to the internet to install security software insures the PC will continue to be infected. Why? Bot nets closely monitor all IP addresses they have acquired. If the PC is not infected when it connects, it gets re-infected before the security software is installed. This move shows just how incompetent the security software companies are. My experience with connecting a cleaned PC to the internet is there is an anonymous incoming connection attempt in the first second the computer is connected to the internet. I am lucky to have older competent firewall software that can be installed without being connected to the internet. The firewall does not need to be very sophisticated to block all incoming connections. This allows me to download and install up-to-date software safely.

.... Show me a puzzle that's not so obvious .. EZ easy

I am not so smart, what is the answer?

obvious

OU812 OU812 OU812

Well I am too obtuse it even get it when I see it. I guess I am too old or never had the knack in the first place though I was quite clever with puzzles and mazes, I was poor with anagrams etc.