GCHQ: A Christmas Card With A Cryptographic Twist For Charity

[6Foot2]

Link: A Christmas card with a cryptographic twist for charity

 

This year, along with his traditional Christmas cards, Director GCHQ Robert Hannigan is including a brain-teasing puzzle that seems certain to exercise the grey matter of participants over the holiday season.

 

The card, which features the 'Adoration of the Shepherds' by a pupil of Rembrandt, includes traditional Christmas greetings from Director on behalf of the department. However, unlike previous years, the 2015 card will contain a grid-shading puzzle and instructions on how it should be completed. By solving this first puzzle players will create an image that leads to a series of increasingly complex challenges.

 

 

Once all stages have been unlocked and completed successfully, players are invited to submit their answer via a given GCHQ email address by 31 January 2016. The winner will then be drawn from all the successful entries and notified soon after. Players are invited to make a donation to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, if they have enjoyed the puzzle...

 

 

 

[Larger image linked: 3811 x 3545]

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Link 1: WolframAlpha has posted the solution to the grid puzzle

 

Use this to get to the next stage of the problem.

 

Link 2: Director GCHQ's Christmas Puzzle - Part 2

[ICTLady]

I'm working on this at the moment, spent about 3/4 hour yesterday and am halfway there

[unixman_again]

On another forum, someone suspected it was going to be a QR code and we was correct.

 

Forearmed with this knowledge I didn't even start the puzzle, as I don't have anything that will read QR codes. Also I'm pretty rubbish at that sort of puzzle...

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Link: GCHQ's Christmas card puzzle 'not yet solved' - BBC News

 

A series of cryptic puzzles set by spy agency GCHQ on its Christmas card has yet to be cracked two days before the deadline.

 

About 30,000 people have reached the final stage of the challenge - roughly 5% of those who entered - but so far no one has successfully completed it.

 

GCHQ director Robert Hannigan, who set the string of teasers, offered a clue: "It's not as abstract as you think."

 

The deadline for entries is 31 January. Answers will be revealed in February...