Cracking the Cicada 3301 puzzles

[Onoma]

Anybody here have interest in it ?

Cicada 3301 - Wikipedia.

 

[Onoma]

The 2014 puzzle came to a stalemate with the final part: a 60-page manuscript entirely written in runes called the Liber Primus

here is an example page:

 

[Harel13]

The 2014 puzzle came to a stalemate with the final part: a 60-page manuscript entirely written in runes called the Liber Primus

here is an example page:

View attachment 47024

I don't know anything about this stuff. Why did they get stuck?

 

[Onoma]

I don't know anything about this stuff. Why did they get stuck?

Probably ran out of things to try

 

[Onoma]

I myself haven't had a go at this for about 5 years, but I watched a few short documentaries on it the other day and had a few observations that have arisen after I spent a few years studying ancient languages

Afaik, only 17 pages out of 60 have been cracked

Here's a link to the uncracked pages

Liber Primus Unsolved Pages

Here's a link to the pages that were cracked, and how they went about it

How the solved pages of the Liber Primus were solved

 

[Onoma]

The puzzle draws from gematria, atbash ciphering, the Vigenere cipher and prime number theory, among other things....

Here's an example of a cracked page:

ᚱ-ᛝᚱᚪᛗᚹ.ᛄᛁᚻᛖᛁᛡᛁ-ᛗᚫᚣᚹ-ᛠᚪᚫᚾ-/
ᚣᛖᛈ-ᛄᚫᚫᛞ.ᛁᛉᛞᛁᛋᛇ-ᛝᛚᚱᛇ-ᚦᚫᛡ/
-ᛞᛗᚫᛝ-ᛇᚫ-ᛄᛁ-ᛇᚪᛡᛁ.ᛇᛁᛈᛇ-ᚣᛁ-ᛞ/
ᛗᚫᛝᚻᛁᚳᛟᛁ.ᛠᛖᛗᚳ-ᚦᚫᛡᚪ-ᛇᚪᛡᚣ.ᛁᛉ/
ᛋᛁᚪᛖᛁᛗᛞᛁ-ᚦᚫᛡᚪ-ᚳᚠᚣ.ᚳᚫ-ᛗᚫᛇ-ᛁᚳᛖᛇ-ᚫ/
ᚪ-ᛞᛚᚱᚹᛁ-ᚣᛖᛈ-ᛄᚫᚫᛞ.ᚫᚪ-ᚣᛁ-ᚾᛁᛈᛈᚱᛟᛁ-/
ᛞᚫᛗᛇᚱᛖᛗᛁᚳ-ᛝᛖᚣᛖᛗ.ᛁᛖᚣᛁᚪ-ᚣᛁ-ᛝᚫ/
ᚪᚳᛈ-ᚫᚪ-ᚣᛁᛖᚪ-ᛗᛡᚾᛄᛁᚪᛈ.ᛠᚫᚪ-ᚱᚻᚻ-ᛖ/
ᛈ-ᛈᚱᛞᚪᛁᚳ./

A WARNNG
BELIEVE NOTHNG FROM THIS BOOC
EXCEPT WHAT YOV CNOW TO BE TRVE
TEST THE CNOWLEDGE
FIND YOVR TRVTH
EXPERIENCE YOVR DEATH
DO NOT EDIT OR CHANGE THIS BOOC
OR THE MESSAGE CONTAINED WITHIN
EITHER THE WORDS OR THEIR NVMBERS
FOR ALL IS SACRED

 

[Onoma]

This is a 4 part series, very good, and covers the efforts so far:

 

[Onoma]

The last solved message ( Afaik ) says:

An instruction:

ᚪᚾ-ᛁᚾᛋᛏᚱᚢᚳᛏᛡᚾ.ᚳᚹᛖᛋᛏᛡᚾ-ᚪᛚᛚ-/
ᚦᛝᛋ.ᛞᛁᛋᚳᚩᚢᛖᚱ-ᛏᚱᚢᚦ-ᛁᚾᛋᛁᛞᛖ-/
ᚣᚩᚢᚱᛋᛖᛚᚠ.ᚠᚩᛚᛚᚩᚹ-ᚣᚩᚢᚱ-ᛏᚱᚢ/
ᚦ.ᛁᛗᛈᚩᛋᛖ-ᚾᚩᚦᛝ-ᚩᚾ-ᚩᚦᛖᚱᛋ./
&
ᚳᚾᚩᚹ-ᚦᛁᛋ./
434 1311 312 278 966/
204 812 934 280 1071/
626 620 809 620 626/
1071 280 934 812 204/
966 278 312 1311 434/

Method: Direct translation

AN INSTRVCTIAN
CWESTIAN ALL THNGS
DISCOVER TRVTH INSIDE YOVRSELF
FOLLOW YOVR TRVTH
IMPOSE NOTHNG ON OTHERS

CNOW THIS

434 1311 312 278 966
204 812 934 280 1071
626 620 809 620 626
1071 280 934 812 204
966 278 312 1311 434



From this it has apparently stumped people

However, take a look at that 5x5 matrix of numbers and see if you notice anything....

 

[Onoma]

So, after 5 years of absence from this puzzle, the first thing I noticed was that the 5x5 matrix in the last cracked page of Liber Primus is actually a magic square with a prime sum, 3301, which incidentally is the same exact prime number by which this mysterious organization signs it's name ( Cicada 3301 )

While only the center number is prime, the sums of the rows, columns and diagonals is prime ( This is how a simple magic square is defined )

 

[Onoma]

So....the original efforts to decipher the pages of the LP used a ciphering system coined " Gematria Primus "

I've noted that this uses the first 29 primes as calculated ( Possibly ) using the Sieve of Eratosthenes:

It combines the use of primes, the Latin alphabet, Runes, Atbash ( Hebrew ) , then a Vigenère cipher, which is a polyalphabetic substitution ( Using multiple alphabets )

The most well known ciphering of this type was used in the German WWII Enigma machine

The Gematria values themselves currently have not been useful in solving the Liber Primus.

Calculations are done modulo 29, so if a value goes over 28 or under 0, it wraps around to the other side.

The Atbash cipher swaps the first character in the alphabet with the last, the second character with the penultimate, and so on.

The Vigenere cipher uses a specific key, and shifts each value according to the key. In this case it can be reversed by subtracting the key values from the ciphertext:

Example:

ᚢᛠᛝᛋᛇᚠᚳᚱᛇᚢᚷᛈᛠᛠᚠᚹᛉᛏᚳᛚᛠ - DIVINITYDIVINITYDIVIN = WELCOMEWELCOMEPILGRIM


So, writing out the terms in the 5x5 magic square from the last solved page shows that it has the form of an Atbash cipher

Atbash - Wikipedia

 

[Onoma]

Here's a walkthrough of the solving of the first puzzle

Cicada 3301 First Puzzle Walkthrough | Boxentriq

As you can see, the complexity and orchestrated efforts of this group are rather remarkable, almost bordering on ridiculous ( Breaking an RSA key, QR codes, placing images at precise geographical coordinates around the globe, using Mayan numerals, Steganography, etc )

They require the knowledge of not just mathematicians, but also computer scientists, linguists ( That specialize in ancient languages ) and cryptanalysts, among other fields ....

The first puzzle was in 2012 ( Solved )

The second was released in 2013 and was a series of puzzles included a bootable Linux disk and music, all solvable

All of that changed the very next year, with the posting of the infamous Liber Primus, which is where this thread is picking up from

 

[Onoma]

This pretty much shows that the 5x5 magic square in the last solved message is designed using combinatorics, among other things, and that it literally screams the prime number 3301 that represents the mysterious organization's name

Magic square - Wikipedia

I've also noticed that, curiously, that when subtracting the prime center number ( 809 ) from the prime row sum, ( 3301 ) we get a term which has divisors that sum to a term we can express with the factorial of another prime number ( 7 )

( Excuse my spelling mistake in the panel above )

So what we have, is a 5x5 group of terms with some rather odd characteristics, other than the numerical prime number signature 3301

5x5 = 25, which is itself a perfect square number, yet none of the terms in the group are actually square numbers

It has prime sums, and a centered prime number, below we can see the checking primality:

There are many, many types of magic squares, ( Bi-magic squares, prime magic squares, etc ) there are also magic carpets, magic tours, etc, these are all rigorously defined at Wolfram Alpha

However, the oddest thing I've found about 5x5 magic squares is that they remotely are related to something called the Knight's Move technique for constructing what's known as a " pandiagonal magic square "

There is an odd phenomenon where the moves of a chess knight can be used to produce a 5x5 pandiagonal magic square ( Rather old game theory being invoked here... )

Explained here: The 5x5 Pan-Magic Squares

In turn, this is related to both Latin squares and Graeco-Latin squares

Latin square - Wikipedia

Mutually orthogonal Latin squares - Wikipedia

In combinatorics and in experimental design, a Latin square is an n × n array filled with n different symbols, each occurring exactly once in each row and exactly once in each column

A Graeco-Latin square or Euler square or pair of orthogonal Latin squares of order n over two sets S and T (which may be the same), each consisting of n symbols, is an n × n arrangement of cells, each cell containing an ordered pair (s, t), where s is in S and t is in T, such that every row and every column contains each element of S and each element of T exactly once, and that no two cells contain the same ordered pair

I'm not yet exactly sure how this 5x5 magic square is related to the pandiagonal magic square and the Knight's Move technique, but I am going off the hunch because in the original Gematria Primus table used to crack calculations are done modulo 29, so if a value goes over 28 or under 0, it wraps around to the other side whereas a pandigonal is a magic square with the additional property that the broken diagonals, i.e. the diagonals that wrap round at the edges of the square, also add up to the magic constant



Thoughts ?

 

[dybmh]

Thoughts ?

Facinating...

 

[Onoma]

One of the most striking things I've just recently noticed about the Liber Primus is the borrowing of a convention of mathematics used by Egyptian priests, but applied to the runic alphabet ( Which is apparently comprised of two separate but closely related runic alphabets )

These are known as " red auxiliary numbers " ( Apparently used as aids for arithmetic computations involving fractions )

The best known example of this is the Rhind Papyrus, written in priestly script ( Hieratic ) ( The red text is slightly faded )

In Egyptian texts, generally, red script was considered sacred, so texts that contained magic spells / incantations, invocations, prayers, etc all used this red script

When a priest read red text aloud, it was considered an act of creation ( Through the very breath of that priest ). this concept of breath + creation itself, was linked to the " Union symbol " of the lungs and trachea and is shown to also be linked to the root etymology of the Hebrew word " Jehovah " in that it derives from a word meaning, properly, " to breath " ( Probably a good separate thread )

Union symbol (hieroglyph) - Wikipedia

Here are a few of the uncracked pages from the LP showing this Egyptian writing convention

Yet another script that appears in the LP is cuneiform ( In this case, it appears to be Akkadian, what I am most familiar with, Yay ! ). I have yet to tackle this cuneiform, just spotted it today

So, we can see that they are invoking 4 different scripts ( Hindu-Arabic numerals, 2 Runic alphabets, Akkadian cuneiform ) as well as a convention of Egyptian mathematics as done by priests ( Red text )

The dots also represent something ( Unknown to me currently, but some pages appear to actually be star constellations )

In addition to these conventions of writing, they are using what's called an " incipit " , the large runes beginning the paragraphs ( The word incipit comes from Latin and means "it begins" "

Incipit - Wikipedia

 

[Onoma]

Page 3 of the LP yielded:

R NGRWMW JIHEIIAI MAEYW EAAAEN
YEP JAEAED IXDISEO NGLREO THAEIA
DMAENG EOAE JI EOAIAI EOIPEO YI D
MAENGHICOEI EAEMC THANIAA EOAIAY IX
SIAEIMDI THAEIAA CFY CAE MAEEO ICEEO AE
A DLRWI YEP JAEAED AEA YI NICCROEI
DAEMAOREMIC NGEREM IEHIA YI NGAE
ACC AEA YIEA MIANOIAC EAAEA RHH E
C CRDJIC

Deciphered as:

A Warning:

Believe nothing from this book. <-- Prime 757* -->
Except what you know to be true. <-- Prime 1009* -->
Test the knowledge. <-- Prime 691 -->
find your truth. <-- Prime 353* -->
experience your death. <-- Prime 769* -->
Do not edit or change this book. <-- Prime 911* -->
Or the message contained within. <-- Prime 1051* -->
Either the words or their numbers <-- Prime 859 -->
For all is sacred. <-- Prime 677 -->


I will point out that " Do not alter or change this book or the message within " is most commonly associated with the Bible...

....but this type of warning,... is actually a standard colophon warning in Mesopotamian priestly texts

Specifically, in tables of mathematical values given from astronomical observations, compiled by priests

Known as " ephemerides "

And curiously, the LP also mentions Euler's totient function in page 4

SOME WISDOM:
THE PRIMES ARE SACRED
THE TOTIENT FUNCTION IS SACRED
ALL THINGS SHOULD BE ENCRYPTED

KNOW THIS:

272 158 shadows 131 151
aethereal buffers void carnal 18
226 obscura form 245 mobius
18 analog void mournful aethereal
131 131 cabal 137 272


Why I find this curious, is because the sums of the totients of the 5x5 square

To clarify

 

[Hayboyek]

looks good one