At the talk, attendees will be given a registration code to play “CYCLOPS,” a CTF/ARG game that will run the duration of Congress. CYCLOPS explores the themes of the mind-control and PSYOPS through an interactive parafictional narrative taking place in the context of an obscure CIA cognitive warfare program from the early days of the Cold War.
I’ve not found the registration code yet – I’d be delighted if someone could post it here. It may be in the video.
Wish I could help you, but I got nothing. Didn’t know about this until you shared it. I’m watching this topic now with you though, in case someone finds the registration code, so thanks for sharing it.
Now I have enrolled and with EDIT_PROFILE I set my teamname to INTFICTION.
Here is a list of commands:
HELP -> DISPLAY THIS MESSAGE
NEWS -> READ AND WRITE MESSAGES
LIST -> LIST DIRECTORY CONTENTS
PWD -> PRINT WORKING DIRECTORY
CWD -> CHANGE WORKING DIRECTORY
PRINT -> PRINT A FILE
RETRIEVE -> RETRIEVE A FILE
RECOVER -> RECOVER MISSING FILES
GAMES -> PLAY A GAME
DIAL -> INITIATE MODEM CONNECTION
EVALUATIONS -> COMPLETE YOUR EVALUATIONS
ROSTER -> VIEW TOP PROGRAM MEMBERS
PROFILE -> VIEW MEMBER PROFILES
EDIT_PROFILE -> EDIT YOUR PROFILE
LOGOUT -> LOG OUT OF CYCLOPS
With CWD RECORDINGS I switched to the corresponding folder.
There I was able to restore some files with the RECOVER command and the recovery phrases HELLO and WAR:
Sheesh! It reminds me, even more eerily, of a 1986 computer program, written in BASIC for the Commodore-128, called Norad.C128.
In that program, you “accidentally” manage to hack into NORAD (!), where your (online) presence is detected as a security breach, prompting a reduction from DefCon 5 to DefCon 4.
Well, the Soviet Union (Hey! Remember them?), as ever-suspicious as always, responds by decreasing its stance from “Stage 0” to “Stage 1.”
Things gradually deteriorate from there, culminating first in an initial return to peace (DefCon 5), followed by a surprise Soviet attack that has us drop all the way down to DefCon 1, with the program “firing off” all of its “nuclear missiles” and ending with an announcement of World War III !!!
As a Commodore-128 enthusiast… well, yuppers, I actually have this program, surprise surprise.
I actually dug up the program from out of my personal archives and ran it last night. As a paranoid Cold-War nightmare, it is an absolute hoot, totally absurd, complete with random “coded messages” (i.e., totally random gibberish) displayed onscreen from time-to-time. Kinda adorable, really. LOL!
Does anyone else here besides me remember running Norad.C128?
