In January 2012, a message appeared on the internet. >> [music] >> White text on a black screen. It said, "We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a [music] test. Good luck. 3301." What followed was the most complex puzzle [music] the internet has ever seen. It spanned cryptography, steganography, original music, a bootable operating system, >> [music] >> and the dark web. Then, it went physical. QR codes appeared on telephone poles in 14 cities across five continents, placed there by [music] someone nobody has ever identified. The people who solved it were pulled into a private forum. They were asked about privacy, freedom, and censorship. Then, they were given a project, a dead man's switch for whistleblowers, [music] software that automatically publishes leaked documents if the leaker is killed. Then, silence. [music] The puzzle stopped in 2014. The last verified message came in 2017. [music] "Beware false paths." Nobody has heard from them since. They left behind one [music] thing, a book, 74 pages written in runes. Only 17 have ever been decoded. The rest have resisted every attempt for 14 [music] years. Thousands of people are still trying. Nobody knows who wrote it. Nobody knows who placed [music] the posters. Nobody knows what was at the end. Who is Cicada 3301? Like and subscribe Grey File TV. New file every [music] day.