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A comment on Cicada 3301. Parent comment

Re:Cicada 3301 by mootothemax on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @05:47AM (#7969836)
I struggle with that article; the "leaked" email it links to is so incredibly poorly-written, I can't see any way to take the rest of it seriously:

http://pastebin.com/RmqxWcnB

The fun thing is: even if it was an elaborate secret-service recruitment drive, I'd feel a bit let down that it wasn't something "more."

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Re:Cicada 3301 by vex on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @05:56AM (#7969856)
Like the header says, it had been paraphrased/had structure modified to remove watermarking elements unique to each individual it was sent to.
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Re:Cicada 3301 by mootothemax on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @06:06AM (#7969878)
Like the header says, it had been paraphrased/had structure modified to remove watermarking elements unique to each individual it was sent to.

Yeah, that's kind of what I mean as well.

If it'd been written to only a few people, there are an incredible number of ways to watermark the content.

E.g. did all of the emails even include a questionnaire? Were some emails 5 words long, and others 5 paragraphs?

I guess the easy/lazy way would be to tailor the questions to each unique email.

Basically, I think the sanitation excuse is a bit too convenient, and an attempt to buy into the super-secret mythology.

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Re:Cicada 3301 by kawsper on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @06:09AM (#7969883)
I like that a group that claims to go without a name signs their emails with "3301".
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Re:Cicada 3301 by snsr on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @01:15PM (#7972091)
It is terribly written - maybe as a form of disguise?
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