Online puzzle has world’s codebreakers baffled

IN Jan 2012, an image appeared on the anarchic internet forum 4chan that set the world’s best codebreakers against one another, challenging them to solve a highly complex and sophisticated puzzle.

It was posted by a shadowy organisation known only by its strange title: Cicada 3301.

The image of plain white text on a black background looked deceptively simple. It read: “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 finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck.”