GCHQ’S card issues a code-cracking challenge
YOU might not expect cracking a GCHQ code to leave your fingers garishly daubed from colouring in.
But this year’s Christmas card – complete with puzzle – from Britain’s cyber spy agency is designed to be fun for the whole family.
Set by Jeremy Fleming, the agency’s director, it is based on a sudoku puzzle.
In the accompanying guide, the spy agency suggests you “might need your family’s very own mix of minds to solve it this Christmas”. And the first step is to grab your colouring pens.
The Christmas card shows a series of interconnected hexagons, some shaded one of six colours, each with a letter inside. Together the hexagons form a snowflake, around the edges of which are tiny stars, also coloured differently. At the bottom of the puzzle is a line of 15 blank hexagons.
The guide says to: “Colour in the snowflake so that each circle of six hexagons surrounding a grey hexagon uses each of the six colours once.”
Then it directs: “Work out the significance of the coloured snowflakes – you might need a ruler!”
Following the instructions should reveal two festive messages.
Asked if there were any more hidden secrets and if the use of sudoku meant anything, GCHQ said: “There’s no real reason behind the use of sudoku this year, it’s just how the puzzle came about.”
Earlier this month, GCHQ’S sister agency MI6 released its cryptic festive offering. The card featured cartoons of a red-nosed reindeer, a robin, a plum pudding, a cocktail, crackers and baubles. Hidden in each drawing is a fingerprint containing written clues that can only be seen under magnification.
The message revealed once the clues were decoded reads: “You’ve found the secret message. Well done. Wherever you are in the world, have a wonderful Christmas and a prosperous New Year. From your friends in the Secret Intelligence Service.”