A Christmas crypto mystery from British intelligence agency GCHQ
GCHQ has published another cryptological Christmas puzzle. Can a reader solve it?
There is a message hidden in the following sentence:
Clue here: reading initials spells this message’s answer. Simple!
This steganographic gimmick is part of a Christmas puzzle from the British security and intelligence agency GCHQ, which I would like to present today as an anticipated Christmas present (thanks to Ralf Bülow for the tip). Last year there was a similar puzzle from GCHQ. In this one, a labyrinth (mathematically speaking: a graph) played a role, which was depicted on a Christmas tree ball.
Quelle/Source: GCHQ
GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is the British counterpart of the U.S. NSA. Its headquarters are in Cheltenham in the southwest of England and are also referred to as the “donut”.
Quelle/Source: Wikimedia Commons
Right next to the donut are Gordon Young’s Listening Stones. Two of these nine sculptures carry an encrypted inscription. Of course, this place is listed in my Cryptologic Travel Guide (developed with Christian Baumann).
Quelle/Source: Schmeh
Goerge Keller’s cryptogram find
Before returning to the GCHQ puzzle, I’d like to discuss a (possible) cryptogram sent to me by Cipherbrain reader George Keller of New York. George can be seen on the right in the following picture (I leave the question of who the gentleman on the left is to my readers as an exercise):
Quelle/Source: Keller
Here is the cryptogram:
Quelle/Source: Keller
George wrote me about it, “Will one of your geniuses find out what it is?” He couldn’t or wouldn’t give more specifics on this. Unfortunately, my genius is not enough to solve this mystery. If any reader knows more, please report. Of course, the whole thing could theoretically be a joke, but George Keller would never do such a thing.
Christmas Puzzle 2020
The GCHQ Christmas puzzle 2021 is available here. You can also find it on Twitter, the hashtag is #GCHQChristmasChallenge. For copyright reasons, I can only present a pixelated version here:
Quelle/Source: GCHQ
There are seven tasks to be accomplished. The hidden message presented at the beginning is the first of them. The third task is to complete the following sentence:
GRYFFINDOR, UFFLEPUF, VENCL, ???
Unfortunately, there is nothing to win. Will a reader still find the solutions?
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Further reading: Vom Teddybär bis zum Weihnachtsbaum-Anhänger: die schönsten Merchandising-Produkte der NSA
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