The hidden code in U.S. Cyber Command logo – Finally cracked! |
Categories: Logo Design News, Logo Design Stories, logo designs
Written By: Nora Reed
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Since its inception in May 21, 2010, the US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) has been in the news largely because of the mystery behind its logo. Apart from its fancy logo design, the real attention getter was the strange string of characters inscribed in the inner gold ring of the logo. As it turns out, there really was a secret message inscribed in the US Cyber Command logo after all. This was another addition to the series of logo design controversies particularly relating to US Government departments. A few months back, the US Department of Defense’s Missile Defense Agency was in the limelight for its similarities with the Islamic crescent and the Iranian Space Agency logo. |
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Where is the Secret Code?At a first glance, it might evade the viewer, but at a closer perusal of the logo, you will find that the US Cyber Command emblem consists of 32 random characters “9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a” embedded in its inner gold ring. Online technology magazine Wired.com was the first to bring this to notice and launched a contest to solve the puzzling cryptogram. |
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What does the code mean? |
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| As it turned out, the 32 character hexadecimal code turned out to be an encrypted form of the USCYBERCOM mission statement: | |
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If you enter the above mission statement into an MD5 hash generator, the 32 character string “9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a” inscribed on the USCYBERCOM logo is generated. An extremely perplexing logic behind a logo designed for a Cyber War Agency. |
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You Decide! |
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| Do you think that it was a clever idea for USCYBERCOM to add an encrypted form of their mission statement in the logo design as most people could even not figure it out? | |
So funny...
July 14th, 2010 at 10:15 am
Yes, it was clever. It’s like putting a “Welcome” sign in Latin over the door to a Latin language club at a school. It’s a bit parochial, but fun.
July 14th, 2010 at 10:20 am
I think it was pretty clever, because it shows Cybercom’s awareness of scripting languages and computer algorithms. The hexadecimal figures also add to the aesthetic of the seal, looking like notches or bevels along the crest.
July 14th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
I think it’s more telling that a government agency would put an encrypted code that would be so easy to figure out… just goes to show how powerful the collective knowledge of the internet is, and how utterly monumental the task of policing it would be.
July 15th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
pretty clever
July 16th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
It has exactly nothing at all to do with scripting languages. As far as being easy to identify – that was part of the point – I’m sure that has was intended to be discovered and then to be known to a small subset of the populace – an inside joke. And it’s not encrypted, it’s hashed. There is no way to go from the hex code to the original text. An encryption you can’t decrypt is useless, so hashing is *absolutely not* encrypting.
July 17th, 2010 at 10:50 am
I can read this without the trans, it’s simple, all read to one! Altogether now, everybody read to one, that’s right, just like a Government Agency would say: in fact what most of the Internet would like to fight, no wonder they want to be the commando uno numero.
July 25th, 2010 at 1:53 am
Even though it was easily figured out, which I believe was done on purpose, I think it was a pretty clever idea. It gives Cybercom a sense of intelligence, that they know exactly what they are doing.