Unraveling Early Internet Legends

Whoever reached the end would be in communication with Cicada via email. Some of these clues even led people to the dark Web. Get ready for a campfire story. I'm Edwin, I'm Michelle, and we'll share spooky stories with playful banter that'll keep you up at night. So throw some wood on the fire and put a wiener on a stick. We're telling you a campfire story tonight. Once again. Here we are in the woods. Everybody, Yes, here we are. Today's topic, our theme, if you will, for our adventure today will. Be Internet mysteries to dum. I think I've said it before. I find internet stuff, early internet stuff very creepy, just because it was kind of like the Wild West. A lot of kids have no idea what it was like. Anyway, this one takes place in twenty twelve, when the world was supposed to end the first time or the second time, because the first one was hy two k that I remember. That's funny because that comes up in my story too. But what yeah whoa Okay, So it was January fourth, twenty twelve, and people are posting in these forums and all these very smart people are typing up apps and they're like just kind of updating everybody. Here's what I had made, here's another thing did. And suppose you're scrolling through all this stuff and all of a sudden you see this post. Hello, we are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it and it will lead you on the road to us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck three three zero one. If you go back to the original post on the screen, there's the traditional view of a forum, which back then was way simpler than what it is now. It's not quite Reddit, but it's still the same style. The challenge was to decipher and decrypt this message in order to obtain another clue. Well, the image was that of a cicada, and a cicada is like, this is a bug. It's supposed to come out of the ground every seventeen years in swarms. I think a lot of people find cicadas annoying. I think they had a huge cicada year this year. Wow. Yeah, well it sounds cool and it actually kind of had to go with the name of this project, and I think it was like, oh, we're hidden and we come out every once in a while. That's kind of like what I think they were going for. This image was a ciphered with a specific code to get the message, you know, this one message that was hidden in there, and the person trying to solve it would get directed to this very specific link, where then they encountered even more puzzles. But this wasn't some simple puzzle they can solve in half an hour or anything like that. This one had included like Mayan numerals, mixed letters with no specific order, King Arthur, and the Holy Grail. After that cicada image, it will lead you to like a website. This website leads you to like this thing. This thing gives a hint in the book. This book gets a hint in something else. Like all these things. It was just like a chain of things, right, like just random numbers and you're like, what does this mean? And you find a link to somewhere and then you get somewhere, right. So people were trying to really figure it out, but soon to discover that the puzzle was taking a life on its own, going from regular forums on the Internet to real life scenarios things like a phone number that you need to call, and then you would get another clue. You suppose you're dialing too, and then they say, very good, you have done well. There are three prime numbers associated with the original final dot jpeg image three three zero one is one of them. You will have to find the other two. Multiply all three of these numbers together and add a dot on the end to find the next step. Good luck, goodbye. Prime numbers are natural numbers that follow specific rule in mathematics right to be considered prime. And these participants would then end up at this one website. When they got there, they would see this other image of a cicada with a countdown to it. Once a countdown ended, the website displayed this strange set of numbers. Eventually they found out that these were GPS coordinates, and people were told to visit the one closest to them for a paper with a cicada and a QR code on it. I'd be nervous to go, but people went. They scanned the code and then they would discover something else, a strange set of words. Turns out it was a poem by William Gibson A Crippa a book of the dead. The poem itself was released under mysterious circumstances. It was supposedly intended to be only read once and originally was published in a floppy disk only right. But anyway, this puzzle, Cicada three three zero one as it became known, eventually led participants deeper into it with the promise that whoever reached the end would be in communication with Cicada via email. Some of these clues even led people to the dark web. Who was Cicada? Like, what was it? Some people thought that it was a part of the government CIA, the FBI, because they had also been known to make puzzles and quests that were very similar to three three zero one. But they could have been just a group of nerds and there just could have been like, oh, let's make a secret organization puzzle and then do that. They could have been just a group of people who wanted just smart people to join them, you know. And there was a lot of speculation there what was this? Also the idea that maybe this was a hoax, it was an internet troll. Yeah, But there's one more popular theory that comes from this leaked email from someone who's supposed to won the competition in twenty twelve. You have all wondered who we are, and so we shall now tell you. We are an international group. We have no name, we have no symbol, we have no membership rosters, we do not have a public website, and we do not advertise ourselves. We are a group of individuals who have proven ourselves much like you have by completing this recruitment contest, and we are drawn together by common beliefs. A careful reading of the texts used in the contest would have revealed some of these beliefs, that tyranny and oppression of any kind must end, that censorship is wrong, and that privacy is an inalienable right. Cicada went very quiet, very very very quickly, and then even the anonymous chat room on the dark Web for the winners to talk to each other was shut down, and then since twenty sixteen, no one has heard anything from them. There was this teenager from San Francisco who was a self taught programmer and now he's pretty famous. His user name technology but tekk dotno logy technology like that was a cool way to spell it. Anyway. He was supposed to be selected for entry into this group. Another winner was this thirty four year old crypto security researcher and developer from Sweden, a man named Joel Erickson. He finished all the puzzles, but he started a week later than the rest, so he was too late. He wasn't accepted into Cicada. Another winner was a fifteen year old from Roanoke, Virginia. His name was Marcus Wanner, who is now a coder and creator at Virginia Tech. With every winner, there were very very smart people who were just unable to solve these puzzles. So these were like the top people that we're able to get through the end. I make it sound like simple, but it's supposedly one of the tougher things. It was a huge mystery when it came out. People were like, who are these people? Who's Cicada? And if you watch any documentaries on this, because there's an actual, really good YouTube documentary on Cicada three three zero one details and all this stuff, you can tell like this was a big thing back then. Well, it's just like the stuff that got attention is so commonplace now, Like someone doing that, no one would bat Andy, I'll do your puzzle while I'm sitting on the toilet, you know that kind of thing. It's creepy. The last thing I know about Cicada when they sent a message out to people saying that they weren't allowing hackers and coders and like all these people that were team up to try to solve the puzzle, because they said, quote, they want the best, not the followers. So you could tell they were looking for someone specific, and I think the reason why is what made it more like, wait, why are you looking for? These people are doing is supposed to Cicada also sent a message in twenty seventeen unconfirmed. I was really them warning about this information, kind of like anonymous style, like oh, don't lie. I mean, it would also make sense if they did become anonymous or that group never did anything. Very creepy stuff early Internet, and I'm telling you those were the days. Those were the days. We're going back to the year two thousand. You happily are logging onto AOL and you hear that beer. But anyway, you only have an hour. Before your mom gets home and kicks you off the phone line, so you've got to. Get in there. You know, Y two K is coming gone. And now we are firmly into the twenty first century, and you know what, You're curious about what's going to. Happen in the future. So you log onto an online form called the Time Travelers Institute for a laugh. It's just an online message ward, and there's a new post by a username you've never seen before, someone named time Traveler zero. And time Traveler zero claims to be an American soldier from the year twenty third six based into imp of Florida. He's posting on this form while he's on a stopover in the year two thousand for personal reasons, which is to collect pictures lost in the future civil. War and to visit his family. So one of the first things he posted on this form was his time machine and its operations manual. And according to these posts, the device was installed in the rear of a nineteen sixty six Chevrolet Corvette convertible and then later post mentioned a nineteen eighty seven truck with four wheel drive. And do you think to yourself, huh, could this guy really be from the future. So you find more posts from this guy on the art bel Coast to Coast website post to post where he calls himself John Tider. He said he was assigned. To a government time travel project that is part of a mission where he was sent back to nineteen seventy five to eve an IBM fifty one hundred computer, which needs to debug various legacy computer programs that exist in twenty thirty six, a problem referenced in the Unix Year twenty. Thirty eight problem. The IBM fifty one hundred runs on apl and basic programming languages. Tyder said that he had been selected for this mission because his paternal grandfather was directly involved in the original assembly of the programming of the fifty one hundred. He attempted to provide proof of this by describing unpublicized features of the fifty one hundred, which led people to believe that a computer scientist must have been behind these postings. Tider also said that for several months he was trying to warn anyone who would listen about the potential threat of basically bad cow disease that would be spread through beef products, about the possibility of an upcoming civil war in the United States. One thing about him is that he basically answered almost every question that was asked him over four months online. So you know, he posted these things on these forums and then answered these questions. But because of that, many people neglected to read his previous posts and ask similar questions over and over and over again, and you get a glimpse of him being like snarky and stappy. So Tighter's final post was in two thousand and one. On March twenty first, two thousand and one, John Tyder told us he would be leaving our time and returning to twenty thirty six. After that, he was never heard from again. Speculation and the investigation of who John Tider was and why he was online continues to this day. Actually, here are some of the predictions that he. Made, and granted, some of them have definitely not come to pass, but all of them are written in. A way where it's like, huh, maybe the happen. Although he frequently invoked the many world's interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is the multiverse sery. Whereas the events from his timeline may differ from our own, Tighter also said that the differences would be minimal. The United States would have a civil war over order and rights, and he described it beginning in two thousand and five, with civil unrest and the presidential election of the previous year. Tighter then went on to talk about it having a Waco type event every month that steadily gets worse, and pretty much everyone's doorstep would erupt into war by two thousand and eight. As a result, the United States would split into five regions based on a variety of factors, including different military objectives. According to Tighter, the civil war would end in twenty fifteen with a brief, intense World War three, which Tighter referred to as end Day. Tighter did not give the exact cause of the World War three scenario, but he said that hostilities were led by border clashes and overpopulation, and he also pointed out that the contemporary Arab Israeli conflict was not the cause of the war, but a milestone that preceded it, which I think is interesting because that's always happening. It's still happening now. Okay, So here are some of his actual comments that I'm going to read. November fourth, two thousand, he wrote, a world war in twenty fifteen killed nearly three billion people. Another comment, there's a civil war in the United States that starts in two thousand and five. The conflict flares up and down. For ten years. In twenty fifteen, Russia Lance is a nuclear strike against the major cities in the US, which is the other side of the Civil war from my perspective, China and Europe. The United States counterattack. The US cities are destroyed along the afe the American Federal Empire. Thus we in the country won. The European Union and China were also destroyed. Russia is now our largest trading partner and the capital of the US has moved to Omaha, Nebraska. Someone asked what even started the war? Can it be stopped? And then he wrote the war is a result of faulty politics and desperation for Western leadership during the US Civil War. Yes, I suppose you could stop it. Someone asked what's the extent of presidential power? In two thousand and thirty six, the presidential office is far more diluted and decentralized than it is here. The powers of the national government are more defined and reside more at the county level and state level. The job of president has been split into an office of five for four main reasons. With five presidents, foreign policy is more consistent, power shifting between the parties has less of an impact, and overall the government. Individual strengths between the president add to the strength of the overall office, and one president is elected for each major area in the United States because we're split into five forever. And then after the war, early new communities gathered around current universities. That's where the libraries were. I went to school at Fort uf which is now called the University of Florida. Not too much as. Different, except the military is a large part of people's life, and we spend a great deal of time in fields and farms at the university or quote unquote fort Isn't that weirdly weirdly interesting, weirdly visual as well? Here are some things he wrote in response to people on November six, two thousand. No, the ice caps are not melting any faster than they are now. People raise a great deal of their own food and do. More farm work, yes, compared to now. We do work long hours. After the war. My father made a living selling oranges up and down the west coast of Florida. My closest friend raises horses, and another works for a company that maintains wireless internet nodes. The Internet's still alive and well. In the future, people spend more time talking because life is more centered on community when I'm with my parents. I live in a community made up of treehouses on a large river in Florida. The river floods sometimes and we have access to the Gulf. Most of our neighbors make a living off the sea or in moving cargo by boat. And then someone asked, what's music like in twenty thirty six? The days of megastars playing multi track studio produced music and lip syncing on huge stages are pretty much isolated to your period of time, which I think is funny because that is definitely still going, still going, but it's definitely a mark of our time. Like everything else, music is less centralized. The general trend is away from computer generated music and more toward real people playing real instruments. I would compare it to what you see in Western movies. We do have hospitals, but there are a lot more family doctors and house calls as compared to what you are used to. There's no real organized healthcare. If you get a serious disease, you die, which is kind of what happens now. So uhh yeah, I mean it's normal. Yeah, we're used to it. Someone else, what's the entertainment industry like in twenty thirty six. Again, the entertainment industry is less centralized. There are movies and TV, but everything is distributed over the net and more people produce their own quote unquote shows, which is something that is happening, which is interesting to be able to have predicted that in two thousand. Yes, we have phones, but the services through the web. Most power generation is localized. Yes, solar is big. There is a thought that a singularity generator could also be used, but most people are against that. And then he there's one comment that I just found very weird. Have you considered that your society might be better off if half of you were dead? He said that, which not to condone it, but after the plague, that's when we got the renaissance, so I can see what he's saying. But also, you can't pick and choose that three billion that's gonna die. That's a whole traumatized generation of people. Creepy, and I just imagine that, Uh. It's pretty creepy. Someone asked him about aliens, right, and we know the government's confirmed aliens now or whatever UFOs they've done that, and no one cared tighter suggests that UFOs and extraterrestrials might be time travelers with superior time machines from further into the future. Than his own timeline. So that's what he said. And then also they haven't figured out anything in his timeline about UFOs or aliens. Interesting, and they've never quite pinned down who did it. A TV show in Italy hired a private investigator to try and figure out who wrote this good luck. They tracked it to like a po box in Kissing Me, Florida. In two thousand and nine, an investigation suggested the entire affair was a hoax created by Larry Harber, a Florida entertainment lawyer, and his brother John Rick Harber. A computer scientist. But interesting, they've never verified these claims. They're written in such a generic way that you could be like, oh, yeah, all that's happening now. It's like those people that can predict the future, like treat you that's a good I mean, if it's all made up, If it's all just a made up story, very interesting and very interesting way to spread it. Yeah, tighter uses the whole like Everett Wheeler model of quantum physics, known as the many worlds interpretation aka the multiverse, which we all understand now because of Marvel movies. And also because he told us the information that he told us that apparently started a new time stream, so the events that Tighter described would occur somewhat differently than it had in his home time stream. So this makes all of his predictions non falsifiable or quote unquote true. Fan corner corner. Yeah, this comments from Peace is better than Chicken and Rice. And they gave us two stars on Apple Podcasts and it's titled It's a little scary because I'm a kid. If I was a grown up, I would love this show. And that's all it says. I just thought that was so cute. Yeah, I get it. It could be a little scary, although sometimes I think we are a kid's show, but I guess we do get a little dark. Wait until you're an adult and then come back and give us five stars. Okay, kid, And in. The meantime, all the grown ups go ahead and Leo's five stars to make up for this review. Yes, please, but it's so cute, but yes, leave us five stars to fix our algorithm, please thank you and leave us nice little comments and won't read them on the air. So, do you guys know of any Internet mysteries, anything that just creeped you out? Did you have any experiences with the early Internet or just Internet in general. It's a creepy place. I think it can be. Yeah, it's pretty dark. Like in the future, it's going to be like the source of like scary creepy things, because now it's more like people aren't going out. We're not like roaming in the woods anymore because we're running out of woods. Oh God, that was sad. That's a sad comment. But yes, that is true. You really nailed this outro. I guess let's just put out the fire and get out of here. Yeah, please leave us a review, don't forget a tap follow on your favorite podcast app. Yeah, and send this to someone you like. Campfire Story is hosted by Michelle Newman. And Edwin cabrub Yes. This podcast was edited and sound design by Sarah Vorhez Wendel a VW sound Make Sure you follow us wherever you get your podm