This episode is sponsored by base Camp. Here's what happens when you use base
camp to run projects. People know what to do, people know where things
are, and you will you stay on top of everything all the time,
untimy, which is most undignified. Don't never get away with this. Oh,
but I think I will, Maya Crowley, what side close this vault
door? You'll only have sixteen hours of air to breathe, That is,
unless that purple hair do gooder, the scratch man, can solve my buggle
and unlock the door. Who are you, my dear Maya Crowley, I
am the buggler. My card this just should I just put it in your
shirt pocket? Door? Is that? Just? What ones? In zeros?
It's a binary sequence? Wherein I have been coated jeep hees coordinates for
no less than three geostaches, each containing a piece of an ancient map.
Wherein I have written further instructions in ultra violet ink. Three hours later,
and if the notes are played in precisely the right order, a prism will
scatter its light directly on the surface of my card, spelling out my name
the pargler. Usually I say, you're a madman, but I meant it
insultingly, but I think you actually might have some sort of disorder that is
so unnecessarily complex it would take someone months to come up with that says you,
sixteen hours starts now, I have every confidence that Scratchman can save me.
But if he did all that for his business card at all, I
don't feel like he has a real clear idea of how long it takes to
solve his boggles. No, no, no. In the pristine wooded wilderness
of America's northwest, one man depends truth, justice, and ecological sustainability from
the forces of evil. Squatchman, Squatchman, squatch Man YOA. Meanwhile,
it's Stately Smithson manor Blaine Smithson, independently wealthy ecological activist and alter ego of
Squatchman, is just sitting down for lunch. Excuse me, Master Blaine.
I've just got off the phone with Commissioner Willamette. What I don't care?
Have they say it? The Commissioner has just called and apparently the scratch symbol
has been on for the last five hours. It's a buddy Pacific Northwest.
Everything's overcast. Can't see anything projected into the air. He's the rubber it
may has been captured, mocked in a vault. Seems a bogglers up to
his own tricks again. They want you to come save him. Well,
of course he left clothes. He's the boggler. Well, all I've got
is this ancient piece of q A form tablet. Huh ha ha. Look,
I see how you went from q A form to q bowl to pool
hole. But I think he's a bit more elaborate than that. Well,
you have to dig a bit deeper massively, perhaps, so we should retire
to the scratch hole. All right, No, no, no, no,
no, no no, we've been over this. It's not pool hole.
No no, no, you've been at this for the last four hours,
and all you've got is pool hole. Here. Let me have a
crack at it. Oh say, it's a hexadecimal Fibinacci sequence in which it's
number cluster references a specific Crayola color, then gives a those colors to color.
In this picture of the amburglar that was taped to the back of the
Quinea form tablet, he's pointing to the sickness star cluster, which, as
we all know. No. Four hours later and I take the pot roast
out of the oven, cut it in twain and fil up. The numbers
are the combination are the vault may Too. Now it looks like you've got
about twenty two minutes to save the mayor may too. No no, no
no no. Unfurling his wondrous wingspan, our hero uses his powerful purple propellants
to make haste to the city center. But will he be in time?
Oh? Holy yes, wow. Well that's that's what you get, everybody.
We've just spent the last hour coming up with a whole new superhero top
shelf drama. It is great. We haven't done a superhero intro. I
don't think so we have, we don't remember it. It was to you,
you know what's you know what's been? I'm Dave Stecco. By the
way, Hi Dave Stecco, Yes, son of um it stole it.
Hi David Flora. Are you sure you're not Dave Stacco? Because sometimes Jesus
right, what one hundred and fifty some odd episodes that we've done and during
the live show, I have to that was awesome to is you were thinking
about me anyways? Hi? Exploy photos. Yeah, I was. What
I was saying is that I was getting around all the the uh Patreon rewards
ready, you know, trying to come up with a list of greatest hits
for intros. Yeah, we've done so many now that to sit down and
listen to each intro in its entirety takes hours. That blows in my mind.
I thought, like, to my you know, it's like I guess
parents always see their kids perennially as five years old. Like I'm like,
I don't know, half an hour, we can get through them all?
Right? Then? Wrong? Wrong. The good part is when a bad
one comes on that we remember and we remember that it wasn't that great.
Yeah skip skip. Yeah, you already know from the get that it's not
going to be a keeper. But there are some that I've forgotten entirely about
vam prex blah that was great. Forgot all about that one. Yeah,
we we we actually expanded the album that we're going to send to Patreon.
Yeah, backers who got the reward level of intros and better or yeah whatever.
So yeah, we're we're going to send about twenty intros yeah to people.
It's a big one, about an hour's worth of material. Yeah,
exactly. It's a full episode of just no information so anyways, Uh,
patreons, great guys, go over to patreon dot com slash boy photos and
it's the part at yeah if if I hope, Oh what your whistle?
Yeah, the whistle. The whistles are wet and in the well lamb at
river wink. Oh, but that's not where you're here. You're here because
it's great photos and it's shooting ourselves. And uh, next week, you
guys. For this week, I wanted to get everybody a week to to
really. I know that we touched on it briefly here and there, but
uh, Misscrypted twenty sixteen. Can you fucking believe that? For It's amazing
how quickly these things come up on Yeah, miscrypted is upon us. Uh,
you'll have your first Miscrypted minisoda next week if you have. Nominations are
open right now, everybody, if you want to nominate someone for them twenty
sixteen, Misscrypted. You got as of this thing coming out maybe a three
or two forty eight hours as I as I said it going right as I
said it was put that mind. Yeah, you got like forty eight hours.
You got a real short wind now, But hey, you know what,
I think that we should reward the people who are listening to this to
day it comes out it's true. Well, I'll tell you what if anybody
has sent in one in the past year, though, resend it just in
case. Yeah, we don't want to miss anything. And think about how
many we had in the last couple of years that have been really great suggestions
by listeners, So I don't want to miss out on that. On that
goodness. Not to mention, we got a really great book from a listener
Amy, Oh, yeah, which is awesome. It's a dictionary of cryptozoology.
If you want to get your own copy, it's by Ronan Colan Coglin.
Yeah, sure, Colin Colin. Maybe yeah. I don't know how
irish you want to get with it, but it is fascinating and it is
exactly what you want if you're if you're making a league of extraordinary crypto Yeah,
that's right, gentlemen, cryptids. It's it's very simple. It's just
it lists, in alphabetical order, the name of the crypto and a short
description. You couldn't get more simpler than this, but it has We've already
checked. We we did. I told Dave throw out a crypto. Yeah,
let's check it, and sure enough it was. It was legit.
It's just a test bat squatch is in here, yep? But is uh?
Is billionaire environmental activist Blaine Smithson in there? Why? Why would he
be? Who? Why? Why would you? Uh? Why would you
even bring him up? Although looking in it now it looks like it is
missing Alba Store. Alba Store is more of mythology than crypted, isn't it.
I guess, I guess if you want to go down that pay if
you wanted to be that kind of person. But this is great, Thanks
Amy, We're going to use it to get us some good contestants. Misscrypted
twenty sixteen. Don't forget you can uh. Once we get it going,
you can go on the website and vote yep, which will if you choose
to. You don't, you're not obligated to, but you can enter your
name for a chance to win a Miscrypted twenty sixteen prize pack of your own.
That's right. At the end of the deal, we do a drawing
and one lucky winner gets a prize pack, which has included such things as
books, candies, T shirts, T shirts, glasses, the Golden Goatman,
and your very own replica Golden Goatman Trophy. Anyways, let's let's get
down to business tax. Yes, let's tax the businesses. Get down to
Bressa. We got a good episode, great episode. We're gonna be talking
about something very interesting, intriguing, mysterious and Mutton muscle car. Muscle car.
Well, we were actually going to record this about a month ago and
we got it turned out to be bigger than we had anticipated, so we
kind of had to it was. It was when we were getting ready for
the live show and everything, so we had to pick something else. But
now we're circling back around to it. Yeah, that's right, throwing to
get into our windowless van and driving it to parts unknown. Yet another listeners
suggestions you for this although it's it is one that I have wanted to crack
into for a while. This one made the rounds with I think Mysterious Universe
may have may have done a little bit on it. But the stuff they
don't want you to know, the house works, the mortal enemy of stuff
you should know. Yeah, it's the same family of the stuff you should
know, guys, but it's the conspiracy kind of thing or you know.
I got into that. I like when I like when you you just gave
me a little giggaty gigginty head when you said that, And so I've wanted
to get to it while for a while. I'm glad somebody suggested it.
But we're gonna be talking about Cicada thirty three oh one. WHOA, that's
an address that you can send us money to, isn't it? No?
No, you know what all the ways we have for you to send us
money that's not one of us is not one. I think this is an
interesting one, Cicada thirty three oh one. Let's give you a little overview
about it and get get into some of these a little bit being cryptic about
it and just do it. On January fourth, twenty twelve, a cryptic
message began making its way onto message boards all around the Internet, and it
may have started on the website four chan. Ah, nothing, we're in
trouble. If we're starting at four chan, can you give us a quick,
a quick how's your father on? What four chan is? Yeah?
All right. Imagine you're in a maximum security federal penitentiary and there is a
forum wherein the various kinds of offenders and felons meet to share ideas um and
then but then there's another forum for all the felons. They got kicked out
of that forum, and it meets down the hall. That's four chan.
It's it's all of the worst parts of the Internet, and it's where the
the the offensive is. Like it commonplace, not what I mean, it's
like, it's like, it's like the highest form of art. It is.
It is where uh, intolerance and sexism. You know, it's where
every bad impulse gets raised occasionally to do an actual art where you're like,
wow, you you really put some time into that. But yeah, it's
a bad place. It's a terrible place. Weird four chan, So the
hacker known as four chan, Yeah, exactly. So this message seemed to
be a call of sorts to recruit the brightest minds the planet had to offer,
and they assumed they were in four Chan. The recruiting tool, it
seemed, was a puzzle, which led to more puzzles, which led to
you guessed it, more puzzles, Frank Stallone always no, it was more
okay. It included a short note of text and an image of sixteen cicadas,
The first clue in this soon to be uncovered lengthy, complex, mysterious
recruitment puzzle. Now as time went on, the crypto puzzle grew in fame,
and new puzzles were released on the one year anniversary of that first puzzle.
The complexity of them grew with each one as well. Clues involved several
types of media, including Internet images, music, books, software, telephones,
and even physical signs. References in the clues also spanned an incredible variety
of material, including philosophical, mathematical, artistic, literary, musical, and
technological works, among others. Some of these had works by mc escher,
Rest, Mutant, Lenox, the Probe, Yeah, Linux, Operating the
Open source operating system, Prime Numbers, Bach, Nietzsche, and even Captain
Carl Jung himself. Damn it, there he is, There he is.
In addition, clues were spread around the globe, adding to the mystery and
theories that this was a large and well funded organization. To this day,
the clues apparently continue you and no resolution has come about. Some have claimed
to have solved the riddles. Some have even claimed to have been recruited into
the inner circles. However, no one has figured out who this mysterious group
is, which has come to be known as Cicada thirty three oh one because
of that initial clue. Yep, So we'll be taking a look at the
timeline of puzzles, some of the puzzles themselves, the influence of the strange
recent enigma, and some theories as to what it or they could be.
Yeah, this is just a fun um, you know, techno mystery that
that some people decided to to gin up and it's it's fun to try to
get to the bottom of it. Yeah, very recent and very strange and
mysterious. Yeah, because you know, like four chan itself. So how
about a timeline here? Yeah, very short, very short, but since
it started in twenty twelve. January fourth, twenty twelve, the original message
appears. The text reads as follows. Hello, we are looking for highly
intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a tast There is a
message hidden in the image. Find it and it will lead you on the
road to finding us. Let me look forward to meeting the few who will
make it all the way through. Goodlock three three zero one. That's my
robot voice. It's pretty good, Thank you, pretty good. The text
was accompanied by sixteen cicadas in a four by four pattern that was the image
that was with it now January fifth, twenty thirteen, the slash X and
slash B image boards on four Chan. I have no idea what these are.
I'm not versed in four chan very well. Just slash B is the
worst. Okay, they started show. I'm not being very specific, but
it just it just is man, all right. So rather than we just
keep wondering, here's a quick version in two four chan, and I went
to the slash B board, which is four random things. As it says,
the stories and information here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only
a fool would take anything posted here as fact. First post I see here
by an anonymous sky is it the anonymous? It could be them? It
says twenty years today, twenty one years today, beat slash B twenty one
years of virginity, twenty one years in, Still sober, twenty one years
and still wondering why I keep getting up each morning. Not really sure why
I'm posting about it, but here's to those who've lasted longer than this.
The replies are as follows, Grow the fuck up and either do something about
it to achieve your goals, or give up on those goals and quit fing
whining. Jesus H. Christ. Another proposal about this one. It's your
choice to be a little bit about it. Make a change. Here's another
one. Just a picture poop in a toilet, says rate my log.
Wow, yeah, yep, yeah, that's that's just it. That that
is just how this, you know, wis goes. I think with that,
just that quick flash that you gave me three three, three and a
half, it wasn't that great. Well, I mean, there's a lot
you should probably learn before you really can properly rate that law that oh geez,
all right, all right, So anyways, that's that's how they roll.
So we've got another image with a with a message on it. It
comes out and it reads as follows, Oh whoa, I can our search
four hind hell edge and anti Vigia walls now conten us. He's got a
little a little Minnesota. He's it's a robot, all right. Sorry,
in your walls now, Antaniel faul Cramp fall cramp. Sorry. The first
clue is hidden with him image. Find it and it will lead you on
the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will
make it all the way through goodlock three three zero one. January six,
twenty fourteen, a Twitter handle used by the Cicada organization tweeted a link to
an image with the following text, all epiphany is upon you. Our pilgrimage
has to be gone and line ten menta weights go aodlock three three zero one
January fifth, What year, Dave, twenty sixteen sixteen? That's this year
and not twenty fifteen. Nope, I mean the way it was going,
it looked like it was going to be January seventh, twenty fifteen. The
guy was super hung over. A tweet from the Twitter handle had a link
which led to an image with the following text, one more time'll all the
path lies empty. Epiphany seeks that they voted. Liber Primus is on the
way. Its words are the map, their meaning is the road. Their
numbers are the direction. Seek and you will be found. Good luck three
three zero one, Beware false paths, verify open PGP seven eight three five
zero nine zero app And now everyone's mobile device and computer has crashed. Yeah,
exactly. Uh so that's where we're at. That that is that is
a refreshingly brief timeline of events, But that's not that that doesn't really tell
as much, does it. No, didn't tell you anything, dude.
How about we crack into a puzzle and that might give you a better idea
of what we're dealing with. Huzzle within a riddle within an enigma, wrapped
in secret. To put that in a SUVI three hours, I'm letta take
it back out. I've got some smoked paprika. The puzzles truly require a
wide breadth of knowledge, including coding, cryptography, history, art, and
countless other fields. People have worked together to solve these, which seems to
be in violation of thirty three oh one's unspoken set of rules. Which,
then, how is it in violation if they're unspoken and the thing talks once
a year? Well, it's at least that's at least according to one cryptographer
who supposedly made it very far down the rabbit hole on his own. Yeah,
that gets so full of it. But since the puzzles have been out
for a while, the solutions have been made available on numerous websites and wikis.
I'm gonna link to a couple of these, So let's go. Let's
let's let's look at the rabbit hole, and let's size it up and reconnoiter
the rim taca loogie down at see how long it takes to hit bob wait
for the splash and that's gross. And then let's look really bad. If
there's an actual rabbit at the bottom of that hole. I feel like a
real piece of ships a crawl, all right, So the first clue,
there's a message hidden in this image? Yep? What do you do for
that? First clue? Technically was the areas a message hitting in this h
image? Hidden? Hidden? Can this image? Fine? Hit um?
If you were to open that in um word pad instead of an image viewer,
you're gonna get what you'd expect, just scrolling gibberish, just lines and
lines of code and numbers and letters and all that. Everyone's seen that at
one point or another. Yeah, except at the very bottom. There's little
nugget there for you. What's it say? Far In the final line of
the code, it says Tiberiv's Klavdiv's Caesar says, now here's the thing,
though, keep in mind the way they used to engrave, because round,
rounded things are harder to do, and actually, do you even exist?
Then? Do they just use vs? For everything? Doesn't matter? But
in Old Roman. Uh, they used vs instead of us. So actually
what you're looking at is Tiberius Claudius. Caesar says l x xt greater than
three three M two m q k y V two g s q three q
equals w clothes brackets O two in t K. Now this is a clue
because it's pointing towards a what they call a Caesar cipher, which is a
type a way of encoding information that was invented. Guess guess who buy sesar?
No it was a Yeah, it was an old Roman style of cipher.
Was that what they call a substitution cipher? Oh? Yeah, which
is I mean, that's that's your classic um little or Fanani decoder ring numbers
and letters. You know, every number of correspunds to a specific letter,
and you have a button and you can change that on the fly. So
as long as you know, you know from a Christmas story, set your
buttons to B two. So now you've aligned B with two, so C
is three, you know, and you go through there and then they give
you a series of numbers. It's a very easy substitution cipher. Yeah.
So if you had a code where it said there's a shift of one A
would be replaced by B B, would b C just like you said.
So it's named after Julius Caesar, who apparently used it to communicate with his
generals. Once decoded, this message is a link to another image, that
of a wooden duck decoy, and it has text that says, whoops,
just decoys. This way looks like you can't guess how to get the message
out. Actually, I put the emphasis on those words. I was gonna
say, actually in the are you telling me something foreshadowing? Okay, that
image can apparently be decoded using the steganography software out guess, Dave, what
is stagnography. It's a practice of a concealing messages or information within other non
secret text or data. So one of the things that we for example,
micro images in a larger image. You could take a picture, shrink it
down so that data is encoded to just a few pixels in a larger picture
of I mean, and this is something that terrorists use. Isis uses.
Taliban used to use a lot. We got pretty wise to it. But
you know, oh, I'm just sending my friend a picture of a motorcycle
and in the fender there's a if you know right where to highlight and expand
boom, huge image with whatever information text, whatever you want is in there
now. The result of this was a message saying here's a book. Code
to find the book and more information go to. And then they had a
reddit link, and then it had seventy six number sequences which read like one
colon twenty two colon three, three colon pou, etc. Etc. Three
colon pou. Yes see what I did. The subreddit contained lots of different
text posts and two images, one titled Welcome and one titled problems using out
guests. Welcome's message was from here on out, we will cryptographically sign all
messages with this key. It is available on the mit key servers. Key
I D seven A three five zero nine zero F as posted there is I
don't want to make you redo that, but I feel like there was supposed
to be a niner in there. They catch a niner as posted in A
two E seven J six IC seven zero J patience is a virtue, good
luck thirty three zero one three three zero one and Dave, what was problems
message? The key has always been right in front of your eyes. This
isn't the quest for the Holy grail, idiot, idiot, stop making it
more difficult than it is. Ah, good luck three three zero one.
The sebreddit image header and the title of the page are different representations of the
same sequence of numbers ten two fourteen seven, nineteen six, eighteen twelve seven
eight, seventeen zero one niner seven fourteen eighteen fourteen one niner thirteen zero one
two zero. It's like counting to twenty in an improv game. Yeah,
that's the worst. I wish the podcast was interacting because at this point,
if this was like live somehow, I'd be like, guys, can we
just say? Then there was some numbers? Do you need the actual moment,
I could put up a slide that was silly. Yeah. The code
is a key by which the text posted on the sebredit can be decoded to
reveal another story about King Arthur. Well, how would anyone if wanted,
someone wanted to learn more about King Arthur, how would they go about that?
You could go to episode ninety nine, ooh nice and learn about him
exactly from blurry photos. Yeah, it's a podcast. Now you could use
that. Uh and it says uh and that is the book that the book
code is used with which is all well and good. But at that point,
you gotta find king Off. I mean, I wanted the code.
I want more, you know, mysteries on the Internet. But I get
moved. I gotta find king OFFA. I don't have time to go through
ciphers and sequences, the reasons, numbers and numbers, when when it all
boils down to the simple fact that I gotta I gotta find him. Why
do you think I was on the Bata Male sub froom on fourtune in the
first place. I mean I came there because I wanted I gotta find King
of the Guys. I'm getting real tired. Go back to episode ninety nine
for the origin event. When the book code is used, a phone number
was revealed. Was it your phone number? Yes, it was four three
nine zero nine six zero eight, tell me late. When the number was
called, a recording played which said, very good, you have done well.
There are three prime numbers associated with the original final JPEG image three three
zero one. There's one of them. You will have to find the other
two. Of course, multiply all three of these numbers together and added dot
com to the find the next step. Good luck and goodbye, phone number
has since been deactivated. Also, I really hope there's just a handful of
people that already know that by now they like heard a phone number like,
Okay, I'll just call it, see what happens. The original image was
five hundred and nine by five hundred and three pixels. Those two numbers are
the other two primes. The product of five hundred nine, five hundred three
and thirty three oh one is Dave height four five one four five one two
seven no nine ers, sir, nope. At the website, there was
an image of a cicada and a countdown. The image of the cicada contained
an outguess message which read patience is a virtue. Check back at seventeen hundred
dollars. On Monday ninth of January twenty twelve Universal time code. At the
designated time, the site changed to reveal a string of numbers. You gotta
you gotta re you full of pie? Yet, man, they're really just
okay, yeah, well you might be a little cicada out right now,
right, Yes, Perhaps that's why they included a bit about patience. Maybe
probably not, if you can believe that this was still from the first clue
and only about halfway through that puzzle, it went on to include coordinates to
places all around the world where a picture of a cicada and a QR code
was to be found. Dave, what is a a QR code? People
have seen these things around. They're more popular now. There's plenty of apps
on the phone read them. Um. They are those sort of checkerboardy looking
patterns. Imagine U two barcodes. If you took one barcode and kind of
rotated at ninety degrees and then put them over each other, with them kind
of weaving in between. It's it's a version of a barcode. It's an
optical way of encoding information. And if you have a QR reader, um,
you know you can. You can even get patches made. You know,
bike messengers have them sometimes that just you know, hey, take a
picture of this. If you've got that app enabled, then it'll tell you
more about the thing that it's describing. So yeah, they're they're becoming more
and more popular. Yeah, they're they're those just the squares. You'll see
them on advertisements and they look like a super weird checkerboard. Yeah, it's
the best way I can kind of quickly and quickly describe them. I haven't
gotten into them yet. I don't know about you. I'll tell you what.
I never I have an app on my phone that can read them.
I've never once done it because I don't. I don't know enough about them.
I don't know what it redirects a phone too. Is that some portal
to get website? And yeah? Is that a portal to get some downloaded
on your phone that you didn't want? I don't. I don't honestly know
which has got it. So old man saying, I don't know they're gonna
steal my identity? Is that going to cause the kids to come into my
yard? So I don't want that from that? And at this point,
I don't feel like any vital information has ever been left strictly to QR codes.
I don't think anyone is like, well, it's super important, so
we'll just put it on this sticker. Yeah. Well, not all of
these physical signs were found, apparently, but the QR codes that were found
had links to rls with cicada images to be used in out guests. Then
the poem Agrippa by William Gibson was found in there, and then an email
with more instructions, including one to not collaborate or share and to be careful
of many fake messages was sent to the players, I calling it player just
to right well, you know, and of course at that point, once
it's a thing, especially on Reddit, then yeah, people are going to
make up you know, red herrings and fake stuff. And now William Gibson
is that the neuromanswer author? Is it? Let's find out now? Quick
question? If I just type William into Google, who do you think the
first William is that comes up? Oh? Man? How many do I
get? Just one? No, I'll give you three, William Wallace,
William Shakespeare, William Jefferson Clinton, One out of three, you got the
number two position, Shakespeare. No, Shakespeare is not in the top three,
which is a sad thing. Number one William Shatner. Oh, number
two, William Wallace. You know there's kind of the set the there's William
Street shop. William Street is the production company for Adult Swim, So I
can see how that goes. But the next William is williams Sonoma. Then
is this calculated to your cookie? Is not calculated to my cookies? We
made a rule about talking about our cookies on here. Rules and made to
be broken. Man, just like all the dishes at Williams Noma. Yeah,
that's right, I disagree with it. It is it's the same William
Gibson. So this is what the puzzles were like. We will spare you
the breakdown of each one. Thank you, jeebus. One interesting note is
the Liber Primus, which is the name of a sixty page book of runes
that was at the end of the twenty fourteen version of the Cicada thirty three
oh one puzzle. The book is still undeciphered up to this day due to
the fact that many puzzle solvers were frustrated by it. Now a lot of
it has been deciphered, some in the beginning, some at the end.
Yeah, some of the middle people can't figure out what's going on though this
part is is weird to me. It seems a little out there for the
rest of the puzzles for the thirty three oh one stuff. So I don't
know. It's it's hard to it's hard to spend time on it. It's
hard to not spend time on it because it's yeah, it'll come up again
here when we right. It's it's not it's not exactly sexy, fun stuff
to talk about, but it also does fill in details of the story,
so it's tough to know kind of where to edit it. Yeah, and
it's not as interesting as the voyage manuscript. Right, people can actually break
this down and figure it out, and yeah, we'll get back to it.
Um, sounds like what you need here in this situation is a swede.
You gotta you gotta he there, Paul, Paul, you got a
swede. You got a swede that could help us out. Paul, got
a swede. Dave, Swedish man. Dave, All right, let's get
us a swede on the case. One guy who claims to have gotten pretty
far into this puzzle has been interviewed a number of times when when if you
do any research yourself, you'll see this guy come up. Joel Ericsson is
a thirty four year old cryptosecurity research and developer from Sweden and initially thought it
would just, you know, just a bit of fun. But then he
got swept up into it and he made it all the way to the quote
unquote the email stage, which makes it sound like a side scrolling video game,
right, But apparently he was too far behind the others, as according
to him, thirty three oh one had put up a message stating that they
were disappointed in the groups of people that had formed to share parts of the
puzzle they discovered without any one member completing all the steps along the way,
as Ericson himself had done. So this is you know, the people who
are creating this are like, ah, damn it, you guys, this
isn't for team ups, this isn't for group problem solving. And then it
also frustrates Eric because he's trying to play the game according to the rules,
and he's behind all these, you know, teams of people that are doing
it. I see that teams of teams, team teams, team Titan.
It's what's quiet disappointing, Ericsa says, especially considering that the people who registered
in time were mostly ones that had not actually solved much of the pozzles themselves.
People were sharing solutions and collaborating a bit too much. I won't do
more of that, okay, but I was loving it, okay. When
asked who he thought might be behind it, he said, Dave Staco's a
liar. I'm getting a full number to call. After solving one of the
pieces of the puzzle, all right, he quotes he said. Getting a
phone number to call after solving one of the pieces of the puzzle was the
first hint that this might not just be the work of some random Internet troll.
So this was definitely an unexpected turn. The plot thickened even more when
receiving a number of GPS coordinates. I also can't help but notice that the
locations in question, USA, Poland, France, South Korea, and Australia
are all places with some of the most talented hackers and IT security researchers in
the world. Now, yeah, thank you, thank you for your skeptics
face. Yeah, what are you gonna say? I mean, it just
seems like hackers in IT security researcher can be anywhere her. Yeah, I
couldn't help, but notice that China is not on the list. Uh,
the UK. I'm sure there's some great ones. Probably there's probably one hidden
in Egypt. Oh maybe, Um have you heard of this? I don't
know if I'm pronouncing it correctly, motherfucking Russia. You know, like everywhere,
okay, everywhere, and yeah, everywhere has hackers like to just be
like, well, I couldn't help but notice this, this list charmony.
Yeah, come on, man, Poland really listen. I'm not saying there
aren't hackers in Poland. But is Poland known for their top shelf hackers?
Honestly? But but who is known for the right? China? China is
the only one that comes to mind that that like, oh, everyone's like,
oh, those damn Chinese hackers. They're at it again. It's true.
Wait, who is the one who did Who is the one who did
Sony? Who hacked Sony? Yeah, I don't know. I forget some
country did that. They were the ones who was a country took response?
I think so maybe I'm wrong. I'm so very often right now. And
you know, ever since I got caught by the government, I'm out of
the game. I only do a security consulting because of my hacking days.
I was quite the elite hacked soldier. Yeah you were. You were quite
the Hackerman. It was a hackerman, all right, let's see here.
He went on to say that intelligence agencies commonly use non traditional forms of recruitment,
makes sense, but don't usually hide their identity. Ericson's theory is that
it most likely as an underground organization not related to any government or intelligence agency
based on the references and their challenges. The a gripa poem by William Gibson,
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake, The Book with a
Law by Alistair Crowley, Ever heard of him, and their constant references to
prime numbers in the light that they are likely intellectual, anti establishment, ideologically
driven, and they seem to be valuing logical analytical thinking highly. Hey,
hey, these guys sound like a pretty good guy, you know. And
this reminds me. There's a couple of of other, you know, similar
things to this. There is The Last Starfighter. It's the video game that's
the secret recruitment tool that you can Yeah, I was, I have it.
I'll bring it up now. I'll have it written later. But it
sniffs a lot of Ready Player one to me, Oh well if it if
its ready Player one, then you will drown in the odor of Armada.
This is the next book by Ernest Client, which is a functional retelling of
The Last Starfighter. Same thing. The video game is actually the recruitment tool.
Yeah. Um, and you know, um, if you've read any
of the Magicians series by lev Grossman, Um, the second book talks about
you know it's it's it's sort of like a Harry Potter but for broken people
with substance abuse problems. But why were you talking about that? Yeah?
I really enjoyed the books personally, But there is a whole thing about all
the people who took the entrance exams to magic school but didn't make it in
that are kind of trying to learn magic as best they can on the streets.
And there was a very similar run to this. I mean, I
feel like those books. Yeah, the first one was published in two thousand
and nine, but there's such a similarity between these two because a group of
highly intellectual people were using a set of puzzles just like this prime number sequences
things like that to to weed out, Yeah, to weed out people who
weren't smart enough to learn magic in the little secret underground community. But yeah,
very similar to the kind of puzzles that are described here. Yeah,
Ericson, Now we've we've tipped our Fedora a bit here with the talking about
that. But Ericson said they seemed to share a lot of ideology with the
crypto anarchy movement and old school hackers. His advice for those currently working on
it was to make sure that you have a good understanding of every part of
the previous Cicada thirty three oh one puzzles. If there's a subject you are
not already acquainted with, take your time and read and learn more about it.
Try to solve as much as possible of the earlier puzzles by yourself,
rather than just reading through a ride up. For parts you do read,
make sure you understand each step completely and tried to think about how you would
have arrived at the same conclusions by yourself, which I mean, I see
how he's trying to, you know, give someone like that is the best
advice, But at the same time, I can't help but feel like I
mean, that's what these puzzles do is they lead you in a direction,
then they take a left turn, and by design they want to see how
many people they can shake at that turn right, you know, So if
you don't, you know, if you don't have the skill set to stay
on instead of getting shook. Yeah, and maybe maybe ultimately that's what it's
about, is about trying to people who are adaptive learners who can kind of
pick that stuff up on the fly. Let's talk about another guy. There's
another person who claimed to have made it even farther than our Swedish friend who's
at how about a sixteen year old going by the cool ass handle technology or
a technologgy technology technology. He puts a lot of shit in there. We'll
call him technology because I don't want to play his don't. I don't trust
it because he's on my lawn. He said that he was met with a
message of congratulations and a kind of forum board with a chat room with about
twenty members and a notice board. The noticeboard topics were apparently mostly concerned with
cryptography, encryption, further improving privacy and anonymity, and creating new types of
open source software. Technology claimed that the projects hinted an interest in infiltrating various
public and private organizations, although no real indication of cyber terrorism or virus creation.
Though unnerving, he didn't think that they were evil. May be just
a bunch of hackers messing around, um you know, albeit maybe well funded,
I guess, he said. The members started not showing up in the
forums, and he himself became board and stopped visiting. Then the site just
vanished. And you know when when people finally were like okay, Junior genius.
So who do you think these guys were? His response was, I
don't know, and I don't know. That's the truth. I think that's
the only thing I can truthfully say that might be a puzzle in itself.
Might be well, when when we get on into this just a little bit,
uh, you might see a link. But I also think, I
mean we were we touched on this briefly. Like the number of other people
posting information, I can also see like a person who starts by trying to
make a puzzle like that, people start solving it and then it was like,
oh, well maybe I'll you know, it's it's almost like a guy
writing a piece of fiction or creepy pasta or anything, posting it to a
board and then oh, wow, this got a lot of reads. I
should write the next chapter. And now these other people who maybe aren't necessarily
the Cicada people are posting these series of problems and then you end up at
what they consider the end. You know, they get to this point like,
oh, you made it, this is you know, we're just talking
about some here, and then they they lose interest, just like a person
writing a fiction, you know, post would do it seems yeah, it
seems very disappointing, right right, to just get there. Yeah, you
do expect for that much hullaballoo for it, for something cool to be at
the end instead of just like, Hi, it's a chat room. Yeah,
how's it going. I'm not gonna tell you who I am? But
how are you? Yeah? Did you? Did you in the puzzle?
Did you hack anything today? Or that's what I would say. Do you
guys have any sweet hacks this weekend? A Lost Girl New seasons on Netflix?
Anybody? Yeah? I kind of stopped watching Lost Growth or Cassina Solo
left. I mean, she's kind of like my future wife. So does
she leave that show eventually? Boiler you dick? You were gonna watch it
anytime? Ye? Sorright? Sorry, guys, best part of the show.
No, mo, she's like my future wife. Did they kill her?
Please tell me they just killed her in the show? Um, she
just not one episode. She's just not there anybody at home or like they
do a really shy way of covering and there's someone in a wig whose backs
always do the camera like making eggs in the background, So you think she's
around. I'm not gonna tell you to find out. Mother motherfuck. All
right. So all right, so this guy doesn't know and he can't know,
then let's talk theories. Yeah, that's that's the bes P. Yeah,
what or who is thirty three oh one? Now some have said,
could it be a potential government agency? Sure, let's get some some NSA,
some CIA, some FBI, some FEMAM six some m I six,
m I five. Yeah, they're both existent. They both are for real
KGB absolute other letters some some other letters. Um the you know, I'll
bet you Brazil's got something, you know, whatever they've got. Maybe it
was all viral advertising for the Olympics. Wow, So you think it could
yes be a government agency doing this? Ah, Honestly no, And I'll
tell you why. Because of the amount of time involved. Like you know,
if you're recruiting, if you want people to do a thing, then
you want to hire them. You want them to work on the thing you
want them to work on. And in something like uh tech fields, cryptography,
hacking, things like that, things happened pretty quickly. You can't just
have a guy on the hook for three years, jumping through hoops and hope
them to stay hope for them to stay current. So you have to have
a real decisive you know, at the worst six month window or something,
you know, for people to solve the problems, and then you bring them
in and train them. Yeah yep, good point. What about a shadowy
agency, not government but maybe in wo nice Freemason Yeah, well, um
again, you know it's tough to know. You'd have to index this with
uh jay Z and Beyonce's tour schedule to know if they were busy while this
was happening. Right, Um, I forget Katy Perry. Oh yeah,
Katy Perry and it as long as someone's got that triangle going again, I
would say I honestly, I think the same thing. I don't. I
don't feel like gets a good recruiting tool because of how long it's protracted,
unless unless you want people who are very intelligent but also low grade obsessed over
time. I mean that you want people with nothing else going on. I
guess people who don't move on. Maybe maybe you do. But again,
I just feel like, you know, think about the when you when you
think of it, issues like um, cryptography, UM, potentially hacking,
you know, code cracking, things like that. Every single company you know,
whether it be a Norton AVG McAfee, any of those virus companies constantly
fighting ever evolving threats to to cybersecurity. There's just no benefit to keeping someone
out in there, you know, in working out of their home office,
trying to solve tiny little picture problems for three years while all this is going
on. If they're that smart, get them in that, you know,
bring them in, give them a paycheck, in a computer, and get
them to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could it be underground hackers
just having a loft them off you what might you A? I think so,
I think it could be. I think it could be sort of.
I don't know if arrogance is the right word. The work that hackers do
is so quiet that they want recognition most of the time for what they've done,
you know, when they're when they hack something for the purposes of hacking
it, they kind of have to sign their work, you know, not,
which is very different from hackers who are stealing credit card numbers and things
like that. They don't never want anyone to know who did that. That's
that's not in their interests. But people who are hacking for the sake of
it kind of want to sign their work a little bit. They want to
know, and there was who are the Lizard group that was doing the DDoS
attacks on um Blizzard servers, on PlayStation Network, on Xbox servers. You
know, whenever a big game would come out, they would try these gigantic
denial of service attacks, and um, you know, all these different groups
that that are doing it, they sign their work, they let people know
because they want some recognition for their for their ability. Um. But there's
also a lot of hackers in the article I've had in interviews they're like,
well, if if you're too dumb to not have protection against this this thing
I wrote, then you deserve what happens. I hear that a ton that's
a justification and a little bit of arrogance there and a little bit of well,
I'm just smarter than all these sheep, so of course I'm going to
shear them. Yeah, um and so yeah, I think that there is
a well, who's smart enough to do these to pass these tests that I'm
setting up at the end of which you know probably isn't anything, you know,
but it's a test. It's a chat room where you're like, hey,
well so you pass, right, good job, not gonna steal your
Yeah, and so it's it boosts the ego of the person writing the questions
because dude, I've been doing this for years and people just can't figure it
out. Yeah. And it also the people who are chewing through these problems
are also like making incremental progress and they feel like they're getting something out of
it. So I like that idea, you like the underground hackers. Yep.
Could it be a new techno cult. There is an idea that that
a cult has either grown out of this or this is sort of a cult.
Techno cult, I guess is the best description of it. I don't
know. I mean, I don't. I don't think it is, because
there's not an overarching ideology to it. Not that's that they put on the
front page, right, And I guess, I guess the closest it gets
is, you know, like we referred to earlier the unwritten rules or something
like that, but there at no point does it does it ask for any
particular behavior. There's no call to action, there's no request of of anything.
Really, they just put them out there. So I don't. I
don't know if if a techno cult really fits the bill, because that's it's
not as though it said now go forth and make your own puzzles for other
people, or or it's directing people like you know these puzzles, you know
are directing. Okay, well you'll solve this next part if you go do
these things. Yeah, you know, there doesn't ever seem to be any
action taken. It's just a series of puzzles. It's just a book of
bogglings. How about artificial intelligence maybe, like what if a program has been
created and now it's self aware, and maybe it is trying, it's biding
its time to take over control of the world's technology, but it needs it
still needs some help via the smartest people that can find. I mean,
I'm kind of just like spinning mud in my mouth right now, right again,
it's it never asked them to do anything. It just simply follows the
next step, so that you know, of yeah, but all of this
is kind of with that caveat of well if some people may have gotten to
a certain point where they dropped off the radar because they couldn't say more,
they didn't want to come out, and that's true, but you could say
that about literally anything, you know, like what about all the people that
went to seven to eleven and that didn't make it. You know, you
could say that about anything. So I feel like that, don't you know.
I guess it's possible that there is that that there are a number of
people that made it. To some end point, Ultron didn't have a problem.
He didn't need other people to help him. He's got no strings to
hold him down. Yeah. Now there's another theory that it could be an
augmented reality game. UM. Now, this is something that that kind of
came into the four a few years ago that was related to the game Halo,
and it started around two thousand and four. And this I'm kind of
looking this up because it reminds me of this. Bungee, the company that
made Halo, decided to kind of start stirring the pot with like a little
bit of like very strange marketing where there was a website called ilovebees dot com.
But if you, if you would like start digging at it and picking
at it and looking at the code, a lot of the same things that
people are doing for Cicada, which also in my mind, I'm like,
oh Bees, Cicada, I don't know. UM would give you information and
it was actually information about a Halo U and it was first, you know,
like the thing that kicked it off. It was it was a hidden
message in a trailer for Halo Too, and you could continue to dig through
what looked like information hidden in very bland places, and it was sort of
a marketing tool sort of a game that you could dig through and it would
have it would reveal backstory about the game, and it talked about you know,
there was an artificial intelligence that got stranded on Earth Cortana. Uh no,
no, it was an alien one I believe, but you know who
flawed. Ye. But yeah, so it was just a really clever way
of getting people to become invested in this, in this what was already a
wildly popular game. But um, anyway, it doesn't I don't have to
describe any more than that, but like this feels very similar like that to
me. But again it's been years, like yeah, to what end long?
Yeah, so I don't know. That's another theory that this is just
a more elaborate augmented reality game. Yeah, kind of like a hackerman nerd
scavenger hunt. Yeah, in a way. Well, there's one more I
have on the list here, David, who who's behind it? Well,
yeah, zucolo sound, is such a thing even possible? Yes, it
is. I don't think so. Yeah, I go to tell you.
I don't know if that's it. Either seems weirdly mundane for aliens. It
seems weirdly invested in in human civilization to be aliens. Well, well,
here's the my thing. My question would be, if if you're an alien,
you're an alien, you're If you're an alien, you're in. If
you're a pess alien um. If you are an alien, and you have
this level of understanding of not only our technology, but our thought processes,
our philosophy, philosophy, how we parse information, history, all these things,
what the do you need from us at that point? What do you
need one of us to do? Yeah, to make it to the underwater
layer so you can suck our brains, right, I don't know. How
did you know about the layer? I made it further, I made it
past the email stage. Do we we? Oh? No, my last
man. Obviously, this leads to the question, what is their goal?
We we've just been touching on it. Why recruit people? What I said
before the Ready Player one thing, there was a series of clues that was
left by the designer of God, I can't. I can't get into that
without like going through the whole yeah story, just long story short. A
guy leaves a bunch of easter eggs in a mass like an in virtual reality
for everyone to find. Winner gets virtual reality, they own it. They
own the whole thing. It's like owning Microsoft and Google and yeah, Amazon
and yeah. Imagine a company owned the Internet. Yeah, and the owner
of that company wanted to hand it off to somebody. That's the premise of
the book anyway. Now it also has a mister Robot feel to it.
I brought this up last time, I think yeah, and I wasn't interested
then either, Floris stopped pushing your agenda on me. Bro, Moving on,
all your hacker friends, moving on, all your new hacker friends who
think that I'm all students pronounced Hackerman. Mister robots show on. I think
USA, maybe Robot. There's a guy who's very skilled at hackerman and real
hackers. If they're listening to this, just like WinCE every time I say
Hackerman, dude, but whatever, I WinCE at the idea of quote unquote
real hackers. Anyways, he gets together with a group of other skilled hackers
to take down one of the biggest businesses, one of the biggest corporations.
Allah, anonymous style Williams Sonoma. They takedown Williams Sonoma. No one bigger
than Shakespeare. Bro No pots for anyone, no whiskers. But what about
what about like thirty dollars? Uh, Spatula's gone nobody, blink of an
eye, nobody, no copper pots. Um, So, mister Robot,
it's it's a show. That's that's a topical thing. But uh, you
know, ti ties to this in that and that's I don't know what I'm
talking about that. Do they want anarchy that that actually is tied into,
mister Robot a bit when the markets fail and economies kind of come to a
standstill, anarchy companies and sat a little bit of fight club there? Sure?
Um? Could they want to erase debt for those under the massive golden
thumb of corporate greed? Do they want to take down the two big to
fai bull that is gobbling up lives and shing out money into the pockets of
a few psychopaths? Is that from the show? No, it's from me
because fuck you rich people, because I'll have to remind you that it's it's
it's text clues hidden in pictures of insects, like you've gotten real far down
them down the rocky road. At this point, everybody's gonna have a gold
brother. Everybody's oh man, can we have theory? The theory, the
explanations part of every podcast. Bring it back down to corporate greed. That's
that's what Big Squawk is trying to protect us from. Or do they just
want to be the rulers of the world themselves by controlling all data and technology.
They're just solving puzzles. They got so much work to do. What
they want you to think that's true. I don't know, man, nobody
knows what they want. You've got a better question for you, all right,
Will the puzzles continue? So far? Looks like yes, yeah,
there was one this year. Yeah. So it would be interesting if if
what technology the sixteen now now I think eighteen or nineteen years old, they
did a big article on him and Rolling Stone even did they really? Yeah,
if what he says is true, it would be interesting to find out
if the group disbanded and then there was a couple that's like, no,
man, we gotta we gotta pick the flag up and keep going. You
know. Yeah, that's why there's no twenty fifteen puzzle, and but then
twenty sixteen start to back up, and I don't know. It's quite the
enigma, isn't it? Isn't it? Just as we said, there's already
numerous pop culture references and inspirations from it. The show Elementary, which I've
never watched and probably never will, is that the one with Lucy Low Yes,
okay, House of Leaves. Never heard of it. It's a book,
I believe, person of interest. Another show apparently has episodes that are
directly correlated with Ripped from the headlines. Even the Navy has modeled some cryptographic
training on it, apparently. Getting back to this idea of a cult,
a techno cult, I'm gonna link to a site called Cicadianism, which is
an occult order built on the philosophy gleaned from thirty three oh one now.
According to their website, a Cicadian is someone who has chosen to give up
the superficial and unfulfilling world around them to follow the path of the Cicada and
emerge into enlightenment. According to them, Cicadianism is a technomistical order, our
philosophy is neither a religion nor a science, but a blend of spirituality,
technology, science, and mysticism. We refer to it as a technomsticism,
which they just did. We did not author this philosophy. It was handed
to us by thirty three oh one. We do, however, provide some
interpretation of the Liber Primus and other writings by thirty three oh one. Also,
we have the shoe that he left behind as he was running away.
Right, yeah, listen, We're not the ones who made this up.
But we'll tell you what it means. And that's totally different that our hands
are clean here. But I will tell you what they mean by that.
I just need you to write me a check. I don't know that they
ask for money. To be honest, I don't know. I haven't either,
haven't tried to be a Circadian. Statistically, I feel like it was
a safe bet to assume, Dave give us a quake. Are you doing
for a what a cicada is? Oh? Just the insect? Sure.
Cicadas are one of the hemmametabolish insects in the order Himipterra, and they things
that they're known, especially here in the old, good old United States.
They when they are immature, they live underground for as many seventeen years in
some cases. Here in Illinois, we get huge hordes of them that come
out of the ground. Sometimes there are these giant populations that live underground and
come out occasionally, and on a crazy year you'll just find their exuvia their
old exoskeletons everywhere. Yeah, they also make a ton of noise. Yeah,
everyone has heard the kadi is They make that that but just so loud.
But they're Yeah, they're just insects. They come out of the ground
to breed, make more a huge feed supply for subtranee animals, moles.
Is this year we're due for them, aren't we. Well, we get
them every year. There's always a question of how much I haven't heard,
Like two years ago, everyone was losing their minds about it. But um,
and I forget what they call it. I think they do, might
even call it like a swarm or something like that. And I've seen maps
where like whole sections in the United States have like a name for their their
swarm that lives underground, and some of them come up. I mean,
it's still a chemical clock. So even you know, sometimes they don't stay
the exact seventeen years underground. They'll come up at fifteen or eighteen, you
know whatever. So it's always sort of approximate. But there are some years
that are definitely worse than others. Yeah, so yeah, if there was
a year that for take for example, if something were to happen with the
weather or something where there were not a lot of predators, then a ton
of those grubs would get to emerge and climb up. They climb up to
a high surface. They kick off their old exuvia. Now they they're they're
fully sexually mature. They can go mate. If if there's any number of
things that decreases the number of predators that year, then more of them mate,
more of them make it back into the ground, and then you know,
X number of years later they're all going to come back. Or if
there's a summer where there's a huge number of birds, you know that seventeen
years later, there's not going to be a lot, you know. And
they're a huge feeder species for everything because they're not small insects. They're like
thumb size they are. Yeah, you'll see their little skeletons on the trees
exactly hanging there. It makes me wonder if that was chosen because the group
will one day emerge maybe you know and recavocun Yeah, that makes some noise.
That is what they're most known for, is the emergence. But back
to this cult, there was, according to the site, a test given
to those who reach the final stages of the thirty three oh one test.
Yeah, I'm looking at it. Look through there and see see if there's
a couple of questions you want to give us an example of. Some of
them are multiple choice, some of them are you you got to type in
the answer, but yeah, some of the questions. Here's one question one,
there is no truth. Answers include true, false, indeterminate, meaningless,
self referential, game rule, strange loop, or none of the above.
Question two, what you are is more important than what you do?
True, false, indeterminate, meaningless, self retential, game rule, strange
loop, or none of the above. Three. The mathematical operation known as
addition is modeled after what and then you just write right, yeah, and
there's how many how many total questions? It goes on like that. It
looks like twenty How long is a piece of streaming? Oh? Yeah?
And these are kind of like little question like question twenty is what does the
word it refer to in the following sentence, It is dark outside. Pretty
pretty fun. You never thought, Yeah, you're like, what what would
you say? I would say this guy guy, Yeah, this guy is
dark at this sky is dark. That's pretty pretty straight answer. I'd agree
with that. Oh, here's a fun question. I am the voice inside
my head. And then the you know, true false and determined meaningless of
French regial game rule strange lived under the above, and you know, this
is the Cicada thirty three oh one dot org test. Now here's the thing.
This is, uh, this is by the Cicadian isn't. Yeah,
Cicadianists, not necessarily. Yeah, this isn't the people who created question.
This is the the technomistics. This is their website that they came up with.
Later. Also, the group was signing everything thirty three oh one.
They weren't calling themselves Cicada. Yeah, that was just the images was first
picture. Yeah, so you know, well, according to doctor Tim Daley,
whose PhD is in religion and who also spends a lot of time fighting
against those that threaten the institutions of marriage and the family, oh, so
he's one of them, one of them. Take this with a grain of
salt. Take this with a bigoted and diversity fearing grain of salt. He
broke down thirty three oh one and the questions into what may be considered a
cult by saying there's no inherent meaning in anything, and all is quote unquote
empty and meaningless. The existence of an emergent godlike global brain made up of
all living things in technology as described by cyber netsis Francis Hayleon. I don't
know if I'm pronouncing that right, but there's no need for salvation because there's
nothing from which we must be saved. This is pretty nihilist. Actually,
yeah, it is kind of Many of their writings and belief focus on ego
death. They're used to the term intelligence rather than person throughout the The liber
Primus seems to indicate belief or at least concern for sentient artificial intelligence. I'm
not sure that clicks to me. Yeah, and and and a couple of
other couple of other points where he thinks it's kind of a cult mentality.
Now you know somebody who who has studied I don't want to say religions because
I think he's pretty heavily into one religion, right, Yeah, he's made
his choice, but that's his view on the inner workings from from what we
have been exposed to from thirty three to one. So in the end,
I mean, I get it with this because I think puzzles like these are
fun, although I'm so far from being smart enough to try something this hard.
It's laughable and to me it's a little depressing. Well yeah, I
think you there's there's a certain kind of person that really gravitates towards this sort
of thing, you know, and they're they're the person that watches the first
thirty seconds of a of a mister and it's like, yeah, yes,
he did it, you know that, Like they just know that stuff,
like they can those those kind of problems. Fat solvers. I'm not one
of them. Well yeah, I mean being able to just be like oh
yeah, I'm just gonna open this word pad, I'm gonna take this code,
I'm gonna plug it in on this other software and like go go to
town. Like nothing that would ever not not me. B Yeah. So
yeah, so it is very intimidating to think about, you know, people
out there that that just ripped through this stuff no problem, And now they're
out there fightings are and the code an armada. Well, let's hope,
I guess, although they could use like a scoundrel and a gambler. Yeah
that's right, some somebody who's gonna crack wise and kiss wives. Oh you
know that old chest No me that friends and lovers is Cicada thirty three oh
one? How many of these people are your lovers? In a in an
encoded image that you have to use out guests to open up and see what
actually is the nutshell? Yeah? Well you know what? You know?
What else? Is really hard to decipher and determine what is? What is?
I don't even know what could be deciph I'm too dumb to even guess.
Well, I'll give you a clue. Oh great, it's puns.
Oh and am I supposed to take puns and word pad or now? What?
Now? What do I do? Must to just kill a joke?
I mean what? Yeah? I'll accept your pun challenge? All right?
What you got You want me to go first day? If you'd like to?
No, you went first last time. I'll go first, okay,
As everybody knows. Amongst some other countries, Italy, Canada it was Bakistan.
Australia, the Philippine major sources of hackers, some of the best hackers
in the world. And there is a an Australian program that people use.
And if you want to, if you can take like a larger image file
and using this program, you can not only hide images but also retrieve them.
Um. So if you need to send, for example, a coupon
for a bloom and onion. Um. Yeah, you can use out out
back guests. Oh, if if you need to tell your friends that it's
okay. If if if there's no rules and it's just right, put another
script on the bottom, put an open script on the Bobby. Oh,
that's good. That's good, it's pretty good. Well, Dave, I
don't know I'll tell you this. I don't think I've told you before,
but I'm thinking about getting eye surgery. Really. Yeah. They they have
this new type of surgery that corrects your eyes so that you can see answers
to puzzles more clearly. It's laser ETA thirty three. Oh one. Nice.
You know there was a book. You know, it's really difficult because
people can't translate it very well. And honestly, like especially to adults,
people my age. You just look at it and it's just it's just gibberish
hum and people. You know, people have claimed various states of progress in
decoding this book, but really it's um. It was created by a club
and it's it's a fan club for a Canadian pop star. But it's just
such inane, stupid bullshit that no one ever even wants to read the book.
It's called the Bieber Primus. What what a what a book to be
burned? If ever a book was to be burned, I've got something right
in that ballpark though. Wait, I was going to ask you this too.
Have you heard the new song about puzzles that's perfect? No, perfect
puzzles. It might be the best cryptographic song ever, because that's what makes
riddles beautiful. It's by the hacker band known as thirty three oh one Direction.
Nice. Them's puns ms puns. And now it's time for you to
confound us with your maniacal writings. Can we follow the breadcrumbs? Who's to
say? What cryptic images do we have to put into out guests and pull
up in word pad using our Caesar cipher four. Listen, Laura, do
you hear that. What is it? Off in the distance, The thrumb
of engines, the screaming of people that are mutated and angry about it.
Oh no, it doesn't sound like they've gotten enough water. You don't think
it. You don't think it can be. Oh my god, Flora,
you're standing right in the middle of it. The plenty ro rom rom rom.
All right, I pick I started off our punt, so you start
this on? All right? From James the skeptical Oki. Do you have
an itch to be rich but don't want to switch? Don't twitch and get
stuck in a ditch? Bitch neat a itch, unhook a hitch, find
your own niche actually play quidditch, make that radar gun glitch or finally throw
a pitch and run, but don't get a stitch and come down to Brunhild's
rich bitch witch and kitch shop. Stop in for a spell and see if
we can help. Wow. Yeah, man, how about this from drop
Bear. Yeah, there's a there's a new sport at the Paranormal Winter Olympics,
the slalom witch time Trials. How about this? And also also,
if the earth is round and I'm from dan Unda, why don't I fall
off, checkmate, Mike, drop thanks drop Bear from General Rodicus, Oh,
general who came to our show. Yep, and we very much appreciated
that. Sorry we didn't give you a shout out. I still like him,
says do you think Quentin Tarantino is a failed devil? It explains his
obsession with Kitch's feet. Personally, I'm surprised the other Caribbean slaves around Salem
avoided accusation, like Fitchuba, the Taylor's assistant, Richeba who worked for a
colonial representative, or Nicheba, who was known for having life. Quitchuba was
lucky enough to escape freedom in the late sixteen eighties. Thank you ironic.
How about from KB KBYBB Wait no, wait, KB goes by Pandora Yeah
yeah, yeah yeah either or however you likes it right? I recently saw
an article that stated DARPA finally solved the problem with their propulsion systems on the
insect like robots. Oh yeah. They sent a variety of them into the
wild to test which ones would survive and give them the best results. One
lucky or unlucky town named Devil's Bay became ground zero for this extensive test.
After a vast number of deaths. The doctor in the town searched for the
source of the pustual ridden pus leaking corpses. They finally deducted that the responsible
robot was the Devil's Baby's Baby's baby. Thanks Pandora box from four Tree,
what did the controlling cockney customer Till's girlfriend who was trying to get into the
shamefully small outfit that he had designed? Every time the dessert tree went around
the table? What the love pass nice? Say? Thank you four Tree?
I got another one from Pandora oh ye double return. Also from the
dark episode, she writes, there was only one question that stayed with me
long after I finished listening. Just how did Darper carry all three bildos?
I suppose they used baggins? Yeah, bag bagin one more here from dw
Oh boil Oh. I heard recently, if a chicken tastes the inside of
an egg, it becomes obsessed with eating them. So in a sense,
it becomes a chicken togo like that, like you, d w when you're
in trouble, you called DW Yeah, that's put everyone Hi a right Hi
pun Hi right again? H oh glorious. Uh, we're we're we're back
to catching up. It's it's been hard because we had a couple of weeks
where we haven't done listener mail, and that's that's kind of bit us.
I'm so past apologizing now that it's just how we We're doing this for four
and a half years, that's how we that's how we rolled. But well,
we love reading them. We were going to get to them, thinks
everybody. We got a lot of new listeners from expanded perspectives. We welcome
yes all you guys, and I'm glad you can join us. Uh,
don't forget to go to iTunes and please rate us five stars, give us
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hey, hey, hey, what else you have got something? Got
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we've got something new. Just tell him now, Okay, we're gonna
have a beer can cooozies, Yeah, or just can coozies coozies. But
got a nice picture of the old bat squach on it Actually that's right or
squatch man, so h be looking for those they're they're pretty fun going to
be on. There's something new for you guys. Patreon of course is running.
We are getting us dangerous, like close to having to write a country.
You're already starting to work on it. Bro. It's it's inevitable oil
and inevitable oil inervitable. Um, that's gonna be a lot of fun though.
Where it's gonna be you know, completely original and well made in the
in the style that you used to exactly. Um, gonna get all your
guys rewards rewards out to you as soon as we can once the charges go
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legit and like I gave you some blurr re photos what still just beyond one
of them? Actually what uh so? Uh so, Yeah, keep on
rocking on the on there. We very much appreciate your support and if we
do, if we keep doing well with Patreon, we will certainly be taking
this to your town. Yeah, whether or not that's sound like a threat.
We're like, there's something we could this way comes circus. It's also
completely unreliable because you know somebody's like, well, I'll live in Boise,
Idaho. I don't know that we'll be coming to Boise, Idaho, but
we don't know we won't. We don't know we won't. So anyways,
keep on rock and Patreon. Remember audible trial dot com slash blurry Photos to
get yourself a free audio book. I am rocketing through the Dark Tower series
myself. Nice as always. We'd like to think of a Chicago podcast co
op. Yes they are glorying us and if you want something to check out,
check out Campaign the Podcast. In the Campaign Podcast, a small consistent
group of Chicago improvisers play through an ongoing role playing game set in the Star
Wars universe, Sweet hosted by Kat Cool Nice. So there you go.
Check those guys out. Support. Everybody, love each other, the rich,
love each other, except for the following some groups of people. But
I think that's gonna do it. And hope you enjoyed this episode of Blurry
Photos. Don't forget Miss Crypted coming up this month, right send your nominations
in if you pledge five dollars on Patreon this month. I believe we have
an episode of Chrono Knots that might be coming out, right, ro no
knots, ro no knots. Yeah, so yeah, pretty fun right yeah
yeah, you gotta keep talking so uh for this episode of blurry Photos.
I have been SKay, David Flora. That's awesome, And I have been
Dave? Was that a niner stecco? Now, if we if we can
just take this picture and blow it up, free blow them an onion?
Yeah? Is that all we got? And wait a minute, put that
thing in four channels. Let's let's extract some of the numbers of the word
pad here like then I'm gonna here. Sis. Joke has been played out
for way too long. You are in the path to enlightenment, except what
is that last word? Bye? No no no la Unfurling his wondrous wingspan,
our hero uses his powerful purple propellants to make haste to the city center.
But will he be in time? Who scratchman, you arrived just in
time. I was afraid I wouldn't make it. Have you captured the Boggler?
Oh indeed he hasn't. Now buggle me this Scratchman twenty three A thirty
three drew in it. No, I'm not done. I'm just setting up
boggle me this forty five dragon books. But it's it's it's rather elaborate.
And just give me a moment and then you you may boggle me this wolf
Zack. Excellent work, Scratchman. You've once again saved the city, or
at least me, Mayor Crowley, although I suppose I also owe a debt
to Commissioner Willamette. Ah, that's what everyone says it. I'm just saying
it like it's spelled now. If you'll excuse me, Scratchman, I'm already
late for an important wetlands planning summit with wealthy ecological activist Blaine Smithson. A
good day, Oh me too, Squatchman. No, no, no,
no, another craven crackpot crushed by the crafty cranium of the crime fighting cryptod.
Squatchman. Squatchman, Squatchman, squatch Man. Yeah