Download your Christmas card. Now get your spy game on.
GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is a cyber-security and intelligence agency in Great Britain. Its mission includes countering terrorism, fighting organized crime, and supporting defense. Since 2015, GCHQ offers a Christmas Challenge each year aimed at young people aged 11 to 18.
A seasonal greeting card doubles as a set of fiendishly difficult puzzles. The goal is to crack seven brainteasers made by GCHQ’s “in-house puzzlers.”
The agency encourages young folks to work in teams and to rely on “lateral thinking, ingenuity, and perseverance.” (Lateral thinking involves looking at challenges from a variety of angles and making innovative connections.)
A third of British secondary schools have downloaded the card. Want to try the puzzles? Ask a parent to help you download the 2024 Christmas Challenge from GCHQ’s website.
GCHQ Director Anne Keast-Butler admits she has an ulterior motive. She hopes the puzzles inspire kids to explore STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). She wants youth “to consider what a career in cybersecurity and intelligence might have to offer.”
In contrast to lone fictional spies like James Bond, GCHQ seeks to foster teamwork. GCHQ’s “chief puzzler” is Colin (who, like a proper spy, gives out only his first name). “Don’t get me wrong—we have geniuses in the department,” he says. “But critically, what we have is a large number of people with different skills coming together.”
The 2024 card features a map of the United Kingdom, linked to locations where GCHQ has bases. It includes GCHQ’s high-tech headquarters in western England, nicknamed “the Doughnut” because of its shape.
Many Brits are keen puzzle-solvers. The link between puzzlers and spy craft is often celebrated—notably in the many books, films, and TV shows about Bletchley Park.
Bletchley Park is a complex of buildings and wooden huts northwest of London. During World War II, hundreds of mathematicians, cryptologists, crossword puzzle experts, and computer pioneers worked there. They labored to crack Nazi Germany’s secret codes.
Historians say their efforts shortened the war by as much as two years. Today, GCHQ continues the work of the Bletchley Park code breakers.
Technology has advanced since World War II. But making and solving puzzles is one area that still needs the human touch.
“AI [Artificial Intelligence] doesn’t have a good record either setting or solving puzzles, not of this sort,” Colin says. “It is still the case that people are able to set interesting puzzles in a way that AI isn’t.”
For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. — Colossians 2:1-3
