Logic puzzles and word scrambles make for fun ways to kill a
little time. But the British government's listening agency, Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), is using one such puzzle as a recruiting
tool. Can you solve this word scramble? If so, maybe you'd make a good spy.
On Monday, January 15, 2018, BBC Radio 4's "Today," which broadcasts a puzzle every morning in
its "Puzzle for Today" slot, broadcast something a little different.
It was a puzzle, yes, but it was supplied by the National Cyber Security Centre
(NCSC), a GCHQ subdivision dedicated to cybersecurity. The NCSC aimed to pique
the interest of young girls with their puzzle, in hopes of recruiting 12- and
13-year-olds as prospective spies. Though the challenge was meant for tweens,
it's no walk in the park. Try the puzzle out yourself below, and keep scrolling
to read the answer.
Here's the Puzzle
"Thirteen rotters stole my answer and they ROTated it by 4
and then ROTated it by 10 and all I have left is Uccr ziqy hc ozz QmpsfTwfgh
Uwfzg! — can you help me get my answer back?"
You can scroll down for the answer. But first, a few hints to help
you crack the code, if you're stuck. This puzzle is an example of a
"Caesar cipher," a type of word scramble where every letter of a
message is shifted (or rotated) through the alphabet by a certain number of
letters. Imagine a Rubik's cube of letters. According to Business Insider, "Thirteen rotters" is a clue in and
of itself too. It references "ROT13," a cipher that shifts letters
exactly halfway along the alphabet (A becomes N, N becomes A), replacing a
letter with a letter that comes 13 letters later. Knowing this tells us that
the puzzle is dealing with a 26-letter alphabet. Phew.
Answer below:
Here's the Answer
It'll help if you write out the entire alphabet before you begin.
Now, start with the first letter in the code, U. The puzzle says "they
ROTated it by 4," so count four letters back. That gets you Q. "And
then," the puzzle says, "ROTated it by 10." Keep counting back
10 letters, which gets you G.
Do the same thing with every letter in the code. If you get to the
beginning of the alphabet before you're done counting, just skip back to Z and
keep going.
If you did it all correctly, you should get this
message: Good luck to all CyberFirst girls! Yes, it's cheesy, but hopefully for
GCHQ, it got a handful of curious young girls interested in cybersecurity. Did
you solve it?
(curiosity.com/Joanie Faletto)
(curiosity.com/Joanie Faletto)
----fishducky
