CICADA 3301 | An Exclusive Look At Who Could Be Behind The Internets Most Mysterious Puzzle
I found a Github today that is run by someone or a group calling themselves the-laughing-monkey. Not only do they call the Cicada Platform but they also talk about DNA encryption, internet privacy, decentralization. This has been the main theme for this years Cicada puzzles.
I have recently blogged about Cicada and their DNA encryption manifesto.
The-laughing-monkey have a white paper on their Github that outlines something called the Cicada Platform.
There first inspiration came from:
Author Daniel Jeffries work on The Jasmine Wars, an epic saga of family, love, and war where China transforms into the world's first direct democracy, running on a highly advanced, artificially intelligent decentralized application platform.
The second inspiration:
The Arab Spring. After the Arab people rose up and threw off decades of brutal repression, they wound up right back where they started, with one dictator swapped out for another. Cicada holds the potential to break this vicious cycle forever.
Now lets take a look at some of there technology claims.
- A decentralized, people-controlled universal ID, called the HUID
- An "Info Wallet" linked to the HUID returns control of personally identifying information (PII)
- The HUID can make large-scale data breaches a thing of the past.
- One beautiful side effect of the system is that it provides **a workable ** universal basic income (UBI).
- The DPoW is also incredibly energy and storage efficient, able to run on a cell phone without draining the battery.
- As the system matures, the HUID will make it trivial to apply for a new job, sign up for a website, or simply buy things in person or on the web.
- The Cicada platform also includes a robust, end-to-end verifiable, direct democracy voting system.
- The voting module gamifies voting by giving voters incentives for constant participation.
- A citizen proposal filtration system keeps crazy ideas from ever coming to a national vote by routing them through ever-larger layers of people.
- Cicada also uses an encrypted messaging system that has the potential to end the crypto wars forever. It builds on David Chaum's idea for PrivaTegrity, but takes the idea much further.
- Cicada functions even if all centralized communications infrastructure fails.
- Lastly, Cicada takes malware writers' tricks and uses them against them, protecting the binaries on everyone's cell phones with checks against a software blockchain.
Their final statement read:
Imagine this: The next time there's an Arab Spring, instead of trading one dictator for another, they simply replace their leaders with code.
They even have a website iamcicada.com
To me this seems pretty obvious that this is the group behind the Cicada 3301 puzzles. Even if they are not the same Cicada I wish them luck. It looks and sounds like a great idea.
You make a compelling case that they'd be the same orgs, and I have to agree that both are pretty incredible. Where do I apply? lol
Been following you with utmost enthusiasm! Great work!
Yes they are both remarkably similar.
I'm working on a blog post that will outline all of this years puzzles with all the workings out and answers.
Thank you for your kind words.
The problem with their approach is that biometrics (of which genetic info falls into), are just a password that you can never change, but which is instantly disclosed to the entire world. I've read what they've written and I don't see that they've bothered to address this problem. Same with Humaniq.
Remember, a biometric is just the result of a set of inputs from sensors. If you can fake that input, you can completely bypass any sort of biometric.
To my mind, a lot of these guys have big ideas, but no real clue about how weak biometrics actually are and thus, how weak their security actually is.
Never thought about that, feel kind of foolish now but that is a great point.
I ran over this when looking into it some more. Seems there are viable ways to counter this:
https://www.scribd.com/document/333701765/Fake-Biometric-v-2
Yes I totally agree. From the look of it they have spent quite a few years researching and putting this concept together. I guess the have thought about this weakness.
From what I gather they actually want to use the A G T C to encrypt data somehow. It's definitely an interesting concept that I think we will see more ideas like this in the future.
I am very motivated by this! Thank you for taking the time to report on this interesting bit of Internet Lore. I for one welcome the coming Robot Overlord. rEsteemed!
No problem. Though you might of been interested. In fact you were the first person I thought of when I came across it.
The white paper is immense. This must have been going for quite a few years.
Edit: Your memes seem to be getting bigger.