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Outguess cicada online7/27/2023 ![]() ![]() Speculation is rife, wild, paranoid and infinitely varied. They cross media boundaries, require visits to physical locations (mostly but not exclusively in the US) as well as the more obscure reaches of the internet, and no one has ever - publicly, at least - claimed to be responsible or worked out who is. Past solutions have embraced William Blake, transposition ciphers, Mayan numerology, The Mabinogion, Aleister Crowley, number theory and Carl Jung. It could be the CIA, MI6 or the NSA (or none of these). The Cicada 3301 puzzle - more a chain of interlinked puzzles drawn from a wide variety of disciplines - purports to be a recruitment tool, though no one knows for what. ![]() The puzzles are set by a group called Cicada 3301, which resurfaced via a post on Twitter in January - to the delight and frustration of millions - to bamboozle the world for the third year in a row. On closer examination, though, this isn’t a moth but a cicada, and it’s the emblem of some of the most convoluted and taxing puzzles ever created. It’s just a little bit creepy, especially if you’re old enough to remember the poster campaign for The Silence of the Lambs: the moth spread over Jodie Foster’s mouth. Still, the question marks and dashes make a clear image: a picture of an insect with wings spread open. One competing puzzle, which originally appeared on bulletin board 4chan and then spread across internet forums and Skype channels, is in alphanumerics on a depthless black background, a throwback to the early monochrome screens from the days of dial-up - a time when email was for most people an undiscovered country. It could be one of the strangest and most exigent recruitment drives ever made. GCHQ, the NSA and the US Navy are all trying to recruit codebreakers quite openly through puzzles on websites, while GCHQ has started certifying Masters degrees in cyber security.īut it’s not always easy to tell if something is espionage or not. There are spies on television, spies in the movies and, of course, spies on the internet. The fourth season of hit show Homeland is going to South Africa, and the second season of The Americans - created by former CIA officer Joe Weisberg and about two Russian sleeper agents in 1980s Washington DC - has just reached its conclusion. It’s London’s turn to be the backdrop for fictional spying, too the big-screen Spooks adaptation starring Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington has just started filming, with scenes being shot on Waterloo Bridge and in the City. The UK’s close relationship with America makes London a possible back door into US intelligence and is therefore a tempting target for Vladimir Putin’s energised Federal Security Service (FSB). But it’s the face-off between Russian and US influence in Ukraine that is sending nations scurrying back to their Cold War habits - perhaps partly in the nostalgic hope that a new East-West standoff might dissipate threats from other corners of the new geopolitical order.Īs ever, London is at the heart of the game, and MI5 is looking to reacquire its expertise in all things Russian, recruiting analysts with relevant linguistic and cultural skills as a counter to the 40-odd Russian spies thought to be operating out of the embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens, a stone’s throw from Kate and William’s abode. ![]() Only last week the US filed a lawsuit against China for alleged corporate cyber espionage, accusing Beijing of trying to gather information on its energy and metal industries. New West End Company BRANDPOST | PAID CONTENT. ![]()
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