Cicada Files: Z 3301 et al
Thomas Andrew Schoenberger (b. June 1, 1960) is mired in legal disputes with Manuel Chavez III, Jesse Davis and Gabe Hoffman, and reportedly shuffles between motels to evade service of court orders. Schoenberger was tracked to the Monterey Park Motel 6 in Northridge (Los Angeles) on September 12, 2019 by Chronic0ps. Life on the run is taking its toll on Mr. Schoenberger, 59 years old, with an extensive criminal record. This photo was reportedly taken by Mr. Schoenberger’s former landlady, Ms. Linda Barrett, in September, 2019, but an accidental self-portrait by Mr. Schoenberger that I post at the end of this article confirms that this is an accurate representation. Both photos depict a clinically obese male with slovenly hair, wearing the same black shirt in pictures taken on different days. Mr. Schoenberger is notoriously shy, he claims because Mr. Chavez put out a Bitcoin bounty on him: in truth, Mr. Schoenberger is vain, and ashamed of his appearance. He claims that this photo was Photoshopped.
Prologue
Researching QAnon led me to Cicada 3301, a phenomenon that Rolling Stone called “the Web’s Deepest Mystery.” (David Kushner, “Cicada: Solving the Web’s Deepest Mystery,” Rolling Stone, January 15, 2015). I consequently interact with felons, sociopaths, hackers and cypherpunks, anons, denizens of the ‘chans, the Twitter-verse, YouTube and the dark web.
Wielding anonymity and encryption, clandestinity and plausible deniability, my subjects manipulate sock accounts, ‘bots, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), waging information campaigns across cyberspace. As Cicada preceded Q, some of its members were involved in both. As melodramatic as all this seems, I am not exaggerating, as you shall see. Read the rest of this entry »
Samizdat 