London (AP) What is a spy agency’s Christmas present? What if there was a mystery encased in a riddle?
The annual Christmas Challenge, a holiday greeting card that doubles as a series of incredibly challenging puzzles meant to inspire young minds in cracking codes and discovering clues, was released by GCHQ, the British selectronic and cyber-intelligence organization, on Wednesday.
Young people between the ages of 11 and 18 are the target audience for the challenge, which encourages teamwork and the use of creativity, lateral thinking, and tenacity to solve the seven brainteasers created by GCHQ’s in-house puzzlers.
The head of Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, sends the card to other national security leaders worldwide. Since their introduction in 2015, puzzles have been a yearly event. Teachers have taken to the card, which is available for download on the GCHQ website; according to the agency, one-third of secondary schools in Britain have done so.
The agency acknowledges that there is a hidden agenda behind the holiday joy.
Anne Keast-Butler, the director of GCHQ, expressed her hope that the card would encourage young people to study STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and think about the potential job opportunities in cybersecurity and intelligence.
The challenge is best approached in groups of students, families, or friends because it is meant to be solved by a variety of minds, she said. There is something for everyone, regardless of your preference for engineering, creativity, or analysis.
GCHQ’s high-tech headquarters in Cheltenham, western England, which is known as the doughnut due to its form, is one of the sites linked to the card’s map of the United Kingdom.
The relationship between puzzlers and spycraft is frequently celebrated in the literature, movies, and television series about Bletchley Park, a complex of buildings and wooden huts northwest of London where hundreds of mathematicians, cryptologists, crossword puzzle specialists, and computer pioneers worked to decipher Nazi Germany’s secret codes during World War II. Many British people are avid puzzle solvers.
Their work shortened World War II by up to two years, according to historians.
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