re: What is Cicada 3301?

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On January 4th, 2013, the anniversary of the first Cicada puzzle, solvers crowded their IRC channel, anticipating when and how the new puzzle from 3301 would drop. Amid the fervor, an anonymous person posted a mysterious confessional. "I was part of what you call 3301/Cicada for more than a decade," the anonymous author wrote, "and I'm here to warn you: Stay away."

Any portentously dire and anonymous message on the Internet could be bullshite or trolling. But as the skeptical solvers read the screed, the author seemed knowledgeable enough about 3301 to give them pause. The author said he had been a military officer in an unnamed, non-English speaking country when, after a year of being unknowingly vetted in person, he was recruited by a member of 3301. He described them as "a group of like-minded individuals, all incredibly talented and connected, [working] together for the common good: the good of mankind." But over several paragraphs, he cautioned about their cultish beliefs, a conviction, for example, in "the Global Brain as another kind of 'God'?" – 3301 was nothing more, he wrote, than a "religion disguised as a progressive scientific organization." He concluded by saying he had since found Jesus.

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