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Reading about this reminded me of Cicada 3301 from a few years ago. Did anyone ever find out the purpose/meaning of those puzzles?

Edit: It looks like there were new puzzles in 2015 and 2016! So this thing is still ongoing...

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I can't speak for Cicada, but I have friends who got their start in the intelligence community from similar sets of puzzles. They'd solve a bunch of random crypto / reversing problems they found online, and end up receiving invitations to interview for IC jobs.

It wouldn't surprise me if Cicada were something similar, but I have nothing to base that assumption on but anecdote.

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