dpivchik

Solution to the Psychoanalytix puzzle from the Melbourne University Puzzle Hunt 2013.

You can read book by Julian Assange, that was first published in 2012, the year of emergence of Cicada 3301, and named “Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet” (https://www.amazon.com/Cypherpunks-Freedom-Internet-Julian-A... and compare its content to the message, that was sent to the winners of Cicada 3301 competition in 2012 (https://pastebin.com/RmqxWcnB) or 2013 (https://pastebin.com/rn4gTF1Z).

It is just an article, not a book. And there exist a kind of balance between length of an article and amount of details. More details means, that article will be lengthy and harder to read. Ok, the most bold similaryty between both events is factoring a large number into perimes. You can find such task in every Cicada 3301 game. And you also can find it in puzzle, made by Julian Assange for 2004 Puzzle Hunt (Disc). It is obvious, that not everyone will find this a fun challenge. I doubt, that you can find such tusk in every other Melbourne Uni Puzzle Hunt, except for 2004. And I also think, that it is very rare task in every other similar quest in general. In "Puzzle solving guide", writen for the 2004 Puzzle Hant, you can find the following: "If you are struggling for ideas to solve a code, try the following: Caesar shifts, Rot 13, converting letters to numbers, converting numbers to letters, Beale ciphers, look for letters with unusually high frequencies, see if the letters themselves are perhaps irrelevant, and the message is in their arrangement, try the Enigma code... If you don't know what these things are, try reading The Code Book by Simon Singh -- It may help, and if not, it is a very entertaining read!", - and Cicada 3301 game in 2012 started from Caesar shift. Also, obviously, that this guide was written by Assange. It is also obviously, that Assange also read another book by Simon Singh - Fermat's Last Theorem. And he should know about connection between cicadas and primes from that book, that told specifically about two species of cicadas with lifespan about 13 and 17 years. In 2013 game by Cicada 3301 that two numbers play big role, becouse they are primes and they are related to cicadas. For 2004 Puzlle Hunt assange made a puzzle (Score) about extracting message from a musical notation. And you also can find similar tasks in Cicada 3301 games. In his puzzle Caesar Cipher Assange used additional spacing between words to place a message in text. You can also find similar method in many Cicada 3301 puzzles. One of his puzzles was named Platonic and was related to geometric shape. You can find similar things in one of the 2014 puzzles by Cicada 3301. His puzzle Surstromming is about different interpretation of a word. You can also find such method many times in Cicada 3301 games (for example, Shalot is a name of a character of a literary work and also name of the computer program). Puzzles in Puzzle Hunt have no instuctions for them: they are parts of a mystic plot. And puzzles in Cicada 3301 games mostly have no instructions - they are part of a mystic plot. Every act of 2004 Puzzle Hunt started with a mystic quote (it is not tipical for subsequent MUMS Puzzle Hunt events). And Cicada 3301 games contain a lot of mystic quotes.

I think, the connection is Julian Assange. And I think, he was a main organizer of the Cicada 3301. But his teams were definetly not the same for both projects. If you know something about Cicada 3301 games (especially 2012 game), than you can find a lot of similarities between them and 2004 Puzzle Hunt. So, I think, there is no need to mention the name of the cummunity a lot of times.

Julian Assange is behind Cicada 3301. He definetly assambled a big crew to make it real, and probably some members was from MUMS also. But definetly not all members. Here you can read about main goals of Cicada 3301 - https://pastebin.com/rn4gTF1Z It is privacy, anonimity, freedom of information, anti-censorship and development of appropriat PO, that support this goals. Meanwhile, in 2012, the year of the first game by Cicada 3301, Julian Assange, together with his associates, published the book “Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet”. In that book they talking about the same things exactly. And yes, as you can see, Julian Assange was very interested in puzzles. And organized very elaborate Puzzle Hunt, while studying at university. Actually MUMS Puzzle Hunt is very similar to Cicada 3301 games in terms of general theme, long duration, atmosphere, openess to the public and some puzzles.