GCHQ hopes the card will encourage more young people to take Stem subjects and consider a career in the intelligence servicesIts annual Christmas cards have become a festive highlight for many adults who try to take on the fiendishly difficult puzzles, but this year GCHQ is inviting children to get involved in the code cracking. The national intelligence and security agency, which employs some of the best problem-solving minds in the country, issues a Christmas card each December with a set of puzzles for its employees and the public to decipher. SponsoredIn 2016, the card’s tasks were so hard that it took eight GCHQ cryptographers two months to compile. Only three people got even close to completing it out of 600,000 who attempted the challenge. The final three received a paperweight from the intelligence service for their efforts.

Source: The Times December 13, 2021 17:15 UTC