What does the spy agency give for Christmas? How about a riddle wrapped in a mystery within a mystery.
GCHQ, Britain’s electronic and cyber-intelligence agency, on Wednesday published its annual Christmas challenge – a seasonal greeting card that doubles as a set of difficult puzzles designed to excite young minds about solving cyphers and uncovering clues.
The challenge is aimed at 11- to 18-year-olds, who are encouraged to work in teams and use “lateral thinking, ingenuity and perseverance” to come up with seven mental points set by GCHQ’s “internal disruptors”.
The card is sent by the head of GCHQ – short for Government Communications Headquarters – to other national security chiefs around the world. Puzzles were first introduced in 2015 and have become a yearly tradition. The card can be downloaded from the GCHQ website, and has become popular with teachers – the agency says a third of Britain’s secondary schools have downloaded it.
The agency acknowledges that festive fun has ulterior motives.
GCHQ Director Anne Keast-Butler said she hoped the card would encourage young people to explore STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and maths – “and consider what a career in cybersecurity and intelligence is.”
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It also aims to dispel some myths about intelligence work, inspired by the super agent James Bond and other fictional spies.
GCHQ’s “senior engineer”, Colin, said the challenge was best solved by teamwork, as opposed to the popular image of the lone genius or lone secret agent.
“Don’t get me wrong – we have some geniuses in the department,” said Colin, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his work is confidential. “But the most important thing we have is the meeting of many people with different skills.
“The skills we are looking for are quite different. We love analytical skills but also lateral thinking skills. And we like the idea with some of these puzzles that it involves a certain amount of patience to find the answer.”
The card shows a map of the UK, linked to the places where GCHQ has bases, including its high-tech headquarters in Cheltenham, in the west of England, nicknamed the donut because of its shape.
Many British people are active in solving the puzzle, and the connection between the interceptors and espionage is often celebrated – especially in the many books, films and TV shows about Bletchley Park, a complex of buildings and wooden houses in north-west London where, during World War II. , hundreds of mathematicians, cryptologists, crossword puzzle experts and computer pioneers worked to crack the secret codes of Nazi Germany.
Historians say their work shortened World War II by two years.
Colin said that among the new students who signed up for GCHQ, “we are now hearing more and more that they first hear about GCHQ with confusion.”
“It really inspires people.”
Technology has advanced immeasurably since the days of Bletchley Park, but – for sure – making and solving puzzles is one area that still needs the human touch.
“AI doesn’t have a good track record for setting up or solving puzzles, not of this kind,” Colin said. “It’s still a matter of humans being able to set up an interesting puzzle in a non-AI way – thank goodness.”
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