17 December 2023

The GCHQ Christmas Challenge


The GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is the intelligence agency for the United Kingdom.  Each year they offer a "Christmas Challenge" to the public, with guides for teachers who might want to use the materials in classes.  A BBC article explains this year's challenge. The GCHQ 2023 Christmas Challenge, and a GCHQ page of brain teasers.

Have at it, and feel free to post partial answers and hints in the Comments.  I have not found the annual RSS quiz yet, and I'm eagerly awaiting the KWC quiz (anticipated to be published in the Guardian this week).

(The cryptogram at #7 is trivially easy) (and #1 is easy).  I'll leave the others to you.  Or view/browse the video in Bob the Scientist's comment.

6 comments:

  1. You're going to need the front of the card (not shown here) to finish the final challenge!

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  2. AN intelligence agency for the UK; One of many. The *signals* intelligence agency for the UK.

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    1. Ah. My knowledge of such is limited to the Smiley novels and the Slow Horses streaming series. :-)

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  3. "The cryptogram at #7 is trivially easy"
    Sez you. One of the points made by the GCHQ director is that folks have different puzzle toolkits . . . and that GCHQ are trying to recruit from a more diverse range of backgrounds in case The Enemy isn't fluent in Hittite or great at solving The Times Crossword. Also here's a Brit !!spoiler alert!! solving the puzzles in real time, no pencil, in about 30 minutes (https://youtu.be/kBdbD0L-et8?si=rvcVOT3dG105KUIA) via Metafilter.

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    1. I'm impressed that he didn't need to write down any notes while doing the solving. But I wonder if perhaps he had pondered the puzzle before creating the video...

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    2. No way to know for sure, but that would be very off-brand for him.

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