Fwd: GCHQ Christmas Puzzle solution : How to solve the brainteaser

Friday 11 Dec 2015

GCHQ Christmas Puzzle solution : How to solve the brainteaser
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  - and the four further parts of the puzzle it unlocks


WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS. A puzzle sent out by the director of GCHQ
with his official Christmas card has got quizzers hooked. If you're
struggling, let us help
=09
- GCHQ puzzle
   The GCHQ Christmas puzzle has become an obsession for some

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

For some quiz lovers, the GCHQ Christmas puzzle is the best present they
could have had. For others, it has taken them to a new level of frustrati=
on.

Released on Wednesday by the intelligence agency's director Robert
Hannigan, the brain-teaser is the first of five stages, each of which
must be solved in order to unlock the next. Ominously, each level is
harder than the one before.

Part 1

The first puzzle, included in Mr Hannigan's official Christmas cards,
consists of a grid of 25 x 25 squares, each of which must be either
black or white.

A series of numbers beside each row and column indicate how many black
squares there are in that line, and how many occur together. So "3 2 7"
would mean that line has blocks of three, two and seven black squares,
in that order, but without indicating where in the line they occur. Each
block of black squares must have at least one white space between them.
It's a little like sudoku without the numbers.

The result, if you shade in the black squares carefully with a black
felt tip pen, is a QR code that you can scan with your mobile phone to
take you to the next part of the puzzle.

The solution

If you're stuck, however, or too impatient, we've filled it in for you.

If you don't have a QR reader on your phone you can get to the second
level by clicking this link.

Part 2

The second stage is a series of multiple choice questions. You must
answer them all correctly to progress to the third stage, though you can
have as many tries as you like.

If you get stuck on Part 2, you can get to part three by clicking on
this link.

Part 3

That will take you to a series of four questions. The answer to each is
a single word that can be used to create a URL taking you to Part 4.

Can't manage Part 3? Then you can go straight to Part 4 by clicking this
link.

Part 4

Part 4 consists of three questions, the answers to which can be combined
to make an IP address.

Part 5

Part 5 is devilishly difficult.

It includes pictorial questions, a crossword, a wordsearch, graph
theory, algebra and a cipher. You can get to it by clicking this link
but after that you are on your own.

GCHQ says it will award a small prize to the first name it pulls out of
a hat when entries close on January 31. The agency said it does not
expect entrants "to answer everything" in Part 5 but will draw the
winner from the top-scoring entries.

Participants are asked to make a donation to the NSPCC as a goodwill
gesture for taking part.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12045768/Stuck-on-the-GCHQ-puzzle-=
Let-us-help.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12041894/GCHQ-Christmas-card-quest=
ion-Do-you-know-the-puzzle-answer.html

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03522/Capture_3522149b.jpg

http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/MobileSwitcher/v2/images/2532-144983571=
31464454944.svg


http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/puzzleinabucket/bb1f263f70e45b3d.html

http://www.cub-zone-often.org.uk/layered/

http://www.gchq.gov.uk/58aa7ef96f3051b0/Pages/index.aspx

http://www.gchq.gov.uk/puzz/Pages/index.aspx

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Thursday 28 Jan 2016

GCHQ Christmas quiz : 30,000 entries, not one perfect answer
------------------------------------------------------------

As deadline approaches for amateur code-breakers to submit their answers
to the GCHQ Christmas quiz, can you solve the puzzles that have stumped
the world ?

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

It cannot be solved using the internet. Specially-written algorithms
have failed to crack it. Even geeks pooling their considerable resources
in online chat rooms have fallen short.

More than a month after the director of GCHQ set a fiendishly difficult
=93fun=94 Christmas quiz, not one person out of the 600,000 who began the
quiz has so far managed to get all the answers right.....


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12125576/GCHQ-Christmas-quiz-30000=
-entries-not-one-perfect-answer.html

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03560/gchq_3560709b.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03560/Robert_Hannigan_3560632=
b.jpg

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12041894/GCHQ-Christmas-card-quest=
ion-Do-you-know-the-puzzle-answer.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12045768/Stuck-on-the-GCHQ-puzzle-=
Let-us-help.html

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Thursday 28 Jan 2016

This is the kind of brain we look for at GCHQ
---------------------------------------------

Could you be a spy ? Only if you have strong morals as well as a big brai=
n

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/12128235/This-is-the-kind-=
of-brain-we-look-for-at-GCHQ.html


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3421294/Is-hardest-puzzle-=
world-30-000-people-submitted-entries-GCHQ-s-Christmas-teaser-no-correct-=
answers-three-days-solve-it.html