unpopular: half the Cicada 3301 'lore' people repeat is fanfic. let me separate what's actually documented

every time Cicada comes up the comments fill with 'it's the NSA / it's a cult / my friend got recruited' and 99% is unverifiable. i'm a fan but the made-up stuff is drowning the real puzzle so here's just the documented spine. started Jan 4-5 2012, a plain image on 4chan /x/, white text on black, '……