After over a year of silence, a mysterious online puzzle has returned with a cryptic tweet

cicada 3301
cicada 3301

(1231507051321/Twitter)
A Twitter account known to be associated with 3301 tweeted out this image, which contains a cryptographic signature hidden inside the file.

The anonymous group behind a bizarre online puzzle, known only as “Cicada 3301,” or 3301 for short, has ended more than a year of silence with a single tweet. The January 5th tweet sent amateur sleuths back to the drawing board to re-examine previously abandoned leads in the hopes of solving the mysterious puzzle and claiming an unknown reward.

The tweet contained a link to an image in the signature style of 3301: white text on a black background. Hidden inside the image file was a known cryptographic signature proving that the message could only have been sent by the group itself rather than the imitators who crop up every year.

The image’s message, however, seems only to suggest that solvers go back to something they’d practically given up on: “Liber Primus is the way. Its words are the map, their meaning is the road, and their numbers are the direction.”

Liber Primus is the name given to a nearly-60-page book of runes discovered at the end of the 2014 version of the 3301 puzzle, and it remains largely undeciphered to this day, having been practically abandoned out of frustration.

“Runes… don’t get me started on those,” a 3301 solver who goes by the handle soulseekah told Business Insider. “[The] runes puzzles sucked, too many ways to interpret them, too many possibilities to hide data in them. It quickly went from a rigorous [capture the flag]-type of contest to a Dan Brown world of magic, hidden messages and pseudo-b*******.”

Jordan Thompson, a computer science student who made it through both the 2013 and 2014 puzzles, up to the runes, had a similar response: “[The Liber Primus] felt like a slap in the face to those who thought they’d made it through [the 2014 puzzle].”

cicada 3301 liber primus
cicada 3301 liber primus

(3301 via Uncovering Cicada Wiki)
Pages of runes from the largely undeciphered "Liber Primus" are a common source of frustration for 3301 solvers.

Marcus Wanner, one of the solvers of the original 2012 puzzle, was put off too. “I was initially attracted to 3301 because they built the puzzle the same way as I or most other free software developers would have,” Wanner told Business Insider, “and this kinda flew in the face of that.”

Wanner gave an interview of his experience with 3301 to Rolling Stone for a story early last year and the spotty history of the puzzle he provides helps explain how the group’s return might bring more trepidation than excitement from the enthusiasts who spent hours trying to crack its mysteries.