Cicada Files: gHOST3301 Interviewed, August 19, 2019

On August 19, 2019, I talked with an early member of the original Cicada 3301, known as gHOST3301 on the deep web and as Dustin757 on YouTube. I was delighted to conduct this interview, as no inner circle members of Cicada’s Early Period (2011-4) are publicly known, and accessing them is difficult.

This interview with gHOST3301 is the first conducted by any social scientist with an inner circle member of Cicada’s Early Period (2011-4). This is my second interview in the Cicada Files: the first was with Arturo Tafoyovsky (Lestat), chief videographer during a part of the Middle Period (2016-8), published earlier on this site, August 15, 2019.

I am researching a long interview (40,000+ words) that I conducted on May 22, 2019 with Manuel Chavez III (Defango) about the nascence of QAnon. Chavez was also an inner circle member of Cicada 3301 late in its Middle Period (2014-8), and he was personally responsible for its implosion on May 7, 2018.

Chavez’s central role in the Cicada narrative, and his account of his betrayal of the organization’s legendary secrecy is riveting and historic. I am exercising due care in the transcription of his interview and my commentary upon it, and I will release it in installments in coming weeks.

These preceding interviews with Tafoyovsky and gHOST3301 are necessary preliminaries to the Chavez interview, providing crucial context. Interviews with further Cicada insiders will give us unprecedented insight into this most enigmatic phenomenon of the internet age.

In this interview, gHOST3301 and I review the complicity of Thomas Schoenberger, formerly one of two “head composers” in Cicada, whose greed and mismanagement of Chavez triggered the collapse of the order. We discuss the prospects for a reemergence of Cicada 3301 on January 5, 2020. We address Schoenberger’s colleagues, composer Michael Levine and television producer Richard Lech.

I first asked Thomas Schoenberger for an interview on April 16, 2019. He ignored me, then he blocked me on Twitter, and he directed his co-conspirators to do likewise. I was subsequently blocked by DJ Genki and qntmpkts, despite an absence of prior interaction between us, and by several Schoenberger sock accounts.

I later reiterated my invitation to Schoenberger in the interest of fairness and completeness. He continued ignoring me until I published my interview with Tafoyovsky: then he complained that I did not ask him for a review before publication. I no longer need Schoenberger’s input. His critics and a large tranche of internal Cicada documents in my possession evocatively speak for him.

gHOST and I discuss the tenuous ownership position of Schoenberger’s profiteering cabal. Schoenberger and his crew may be able to sell the story of Cicada to Hollywood, but withstanding legal challenges by the artists who actually created Cicada’s infamous puzzles may prove difficult: the project could be paralyzed by a single judicial injunction.

gHOST and I discuss the origin story of Cicada 3301, and the role of Debian Linux creator Ian Murdock, who was known as early as 2011 as The Architect: Murdock was allegedly a leading member of the original Cicada clandestine cabal, which remains covert today. We resuscitate a puzzle made by gHOST3301 at the personal behest of Ian Murdock, known as The Message, and illustrate it for a later generation of Cicada loyalists.

gHOST and I discuss certain IRC channels as the native habitat of the earliest Cicada members, whose number and actual identities remain unconfirmed. We contemplate Liber Primus, core text of Cicada 3301, which remains mostly unsolved. We touch upon clues for solvers, and agree to galvanize the solving community.

gHOST and I discuss the tragic deaths of former Cicada member Sam Fullerton (Zelador Petroff), and Sheriff’s Sergeant Michael Stephen, and illuminate false paths propagated by Schoenberger. We restore focus to the cypherpunk ideals that germinated Cicada 3301.

Those who are interested in Cicada 3301 and the perplexing puzzles that it created will find this interview interesting. For the political scientists in my audience, this is an analysis of organization, functions and goals of Cicada 3301.

I detail how Cicada was organized, how its organization changed over time, how it functioned, and how it sought to achieve its goals. For social scientists, this is a glimpse into a digital secret society, a cypherpunk order whose lifespan is not yet complete.

For that global community of solvers who are attempting to break the layered encryption of Liber Primus, a community which remains stymied, I hope that this interview renews their impetus.

Revised in 17,466 words on September 1, 2019, and published with the kind collaboration of gHOST3301 on September 2, 2019.

Complete interview with audio file and transcript available on Samizdat:

https://therealsamizdat.com/2019/08/30/cicada-files-ghost3301-interview/