OK, I haven’t contributed but I’ll try to summarize: Member Here Come Dots started a thread saying “someone I follow on Twitter just starting posting some kind of code. Can anyone help?” The simple code in the tweets pointed to newspaper boxes in a few cities. Thread participants recovered CDs from a couple of the boxes, which contained clues that led to some on-line clues, including some clues provided by interaction with a different Twitter account.
The on-line stuff culminated in a list of retail locations in several cities. Various thread participants reported visiting several of these locations and finding envelopes (marked ‘clue’ or similar) with dollar bills inside. Markings on the bills, combined with earlier clues, led to a website with a sattelite photo of an urban block. Notably, the website was evidently set up to notify the author when the picture was first downloaded, because the site was quickly modified to include a date and time. Thread participants identified the photo as a location in NYC and we’re waiting to see who’s there. The final picture also now includes text “I’ll be there. Just look for the hottest woman in the bar, and tell her you’d like to introduce her to the guy wearing an Enigma nametag. That’ll be me.” (many of the clues included various anagrams of ‘its an enigma’.)
In the meantime, suspicion has been raised about some thread participant’s innocence. ** Sadrobot** posted a couple huge critical leaps in solving the latest round. More suspicious, IMHO, is Here Come Dots, who started the whole thing. There’s been no explanation of who the original twitter clue-poster is or why HCD followed them. HCD only started posting in April, making several Manhattan references. In the latest puzzle thread they said that they were near the location in Chicago and then quickly posted a scan of the clue from that location after “getting back to their desk”.
Finally, Alex Schoenbaum from Austin, TX has been identified as registering websites involved in the puzzle, in case you want to throw out a name.
The puzzle took a few threads, culminating in this one: It's an Enigma. Part II: After the Math Riddle - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board, which I think has a link to the previous one.
So, questions to start with:
Why?
It appears that multiple people were involved, so doing this on a whim or just for fun seems unlikely. I fear this is some hideous ‘guerilla marketing’ scheme, but hope for something more interesting.
Who?
Are Here Come Dots, Sadrobot and/or other, more subtly hinting, thread participants involved? What other people distributed the CDs and clues?
Why us? Was this aimed only at the Dope, or did other communities get a chance and whiff on it? (We need to know if there are bragging rights here. Not that I helped at the time, but I’m not above bragging about other’s work).