What is the Cipher Challenge?
The second University of Southampton National
Cipher Challenge is a cipher cracking competition which consists
of a sequence of 8 enciphered messages to be published simultaneously
on this website and at the EducationGuardian.co.uk between October
2003 and January 2004. For each challenge we will select a number of winners drawn at random from among the correct entries submitted. If your first submission contains a mistake don't worry, you can try again, however you will get a score for your first submission to each challenge which will be totalled throughout the competition. At the end the individual or team with the highest score will be declared the National Cipher Challenge Champions for 2004 and they and their school will share in the Championship prize of £1,500.
The schedule for the publication of messages, the solution deadlines and
a list of the prizes can be found below; note that all challenges will be published at 4pm on a Thursday, here and at EducationGuardian.co.uk.
The enciphered messages correspond to a fictitious diary written by Agatha Highfield, our heroine, and describe her adventures as she tries to obtain the Babylon Stone to establish her reputation as the finest archaeologist of her generation. You can read more about Aggie's adventures in Harry's Notebook. Harry will act as your guide. He has been hired by Aunt Aggie's niece to attempt to track down the missing (and highly valuable) Stone, apparently spirited away by the old lady. His notebook will contain hints about how to tackle the challenges as well as news about the challenge and links to the Hall of Fame where we will list all the correct entries.
The reason for Aunt Aggie's secrecy will become apparent as the story unfolds, but what you will find is that the need for secrecy grows, and, accordingly the ciphers she uses to conceal the secret notes in her journal become more sophisticated as the challenge proceeds. The early challenges (1 to 3) are very straightforward, and you can find help with their decryption in the Teachers' Notes which you can download in PDF format.
Some of the messages give clues to the ciphers used in subsequent
messages, but it is not necessary to solve all the messages.
Solutions to messages will appear as the competition proceeds, and you will find links to the solutions on the pages of Aunt Aggie's diary.
The competition, which is only open to students attending fulltime
education in schools in the UK (together with the Channel Islands), who will be 18 years or under on 31 August 2004. In order to take part you will need to register on our registration page. You will be asked for your age, the name of your school and an email address where you can be contacted. This email address will then be used as your login identity for submitting entries to the competition. You will receive a password by email which you will also need to keep and use for entries. If you do forget it, you can ask for it to be resent.
How do I enter?
Entries for each challenge, which may be from individuals or from teams, should be submitted using the competition webform
Be careful to follow the instructions on the form. Failure to adhere
to all the instructions may result in the entry being deemed invalid.
The detailed rules are given below:
Acknowledgements
The competition is run by the School
of Mathematics at the University of Southampton. The organisers gratefully
acknowledge the support of the sponsors of the second
National Cipher Challenge:
The
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Public Awareness Group)
The EducationGuardian.co.uk
IBM
Bletchley Park
The organisers would also like to express
their thanks for help from a number of people who have worked hard to
make this competition a success; Hugh Evans, Catherine Warwick,
Brian Holloway, Katherine Glover, Jimmy Leach, Liz Ford, Lord May
President of the Royal Society, Helen Purdy, Jim Renshaw and
Sarah Watts. We would also like to thank
Simon Singh whose original Cipher Challenge inspired this one.
The IBM logo is a registered trademark
of IBM Corp. and is used under license.
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Message from Lord May of Oxford AC Kt PRS, President
of the Royal Society
It is with pleasure that I invite you to take part in the second University of
Southampton National Cipher Challenge, a competition designed to
promote the enjoyment to be had in using mathematics, and I hope that
you and your teachers will share that enjoyment together.
Since 1660 the Royal Society has actively promoted Science and Engineering
in the UK, and along the Cipher Challenge trail you may learn a little
of the fine scientific and cultural heritage we all share. You
will also sharpen the problem solving and analytical skills crucial to
you in future careers, as well as win a prize from amongst the total of
£5,000 of prizes available for you and your school.
I wish you all success in this exciting challenge. Professor Lord Robert May.
The story so far ... In 1911 Agatha Highfield has just graduated from Oxford with a degree in Archaeology and a passion to prove that she is the equal of any man in the field. Rejected by the establishment she sets out to find the legendary Babylon Stone, which she believes may be found in the Valley of the Kings.
Frustrated by rivals and pursued by mysterious foreign agents she follows the only clue she has, recording her adventures in her (encrypted) diary. Her disappearance was a great shock to her friends and family and now, in 1937, her niece has hired Harry Schulz Vandiver, a mathematician with a difference, to help her trace her Aunt and the missing Babylon Stone. Harry will be your guide and mentor as you learn to crack Aunt Aggie's diary - The Journal.
Information For Teachers The competition is designed so
that participants on the Cipher Challenge trail will learn not only
about ciphers but also some mathematics, science and engineering and
the social and cultural context of the time. However to colour the
story there are a few anachronisms and historical inconsistencies,
so watch out!
Our teachers pack includes an introduction to substitution ciphers
together with three lesson plans which may be useful in helping
you to explore the understanding of simple encipherment and decryption
techniques with interested pupils. We have set the release time for each challenge to 4pm on a Thursday in the hope that pupils will be able to use School IT resources at that time. If you have a Maths Club already perhaps they could be organised into teams to tackle the challenges, and if not this might be a good project for a short term Cipher Club. Bruce Schneier and Niels Ferguson, two of the world's top cryptographers have described cryptography as "Just about the most fun you can have with mathematics" and we are inclined to agree with them. We hope that this competition will help you in the task of enthusing students. If it does let us know, and if it doesn't let us know that too. We are always looking for ways to improve the competition.
DOWNLOAD
TEACHERS' PACK
Competition
Schedule At any stage you can view the current challenge by clicking on the numeral on the central pyramid on the homepage. Clicking on the text of the challenge will allow you to download it to your computer. Past challenges can be viewed by navigating the links at the top of the page in Aggie's diary (The Journal) You will be able to view the challenge and its solution there, and again clicking on the text will download the solution as a PDF file. Further commentary on the solution may be found in Harry's notebook, which should be viewed as a general purpose news and info page for the competition. The solution deadline in each case is 12.01 am, i.e., right at the beginning of the given day. The next challenge will be issued later that same day.
| Challenge
No. |
Publication
Date |
Solution
deadline |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| 1 |
2 October |
9 October |
| 2 |
9 October |
16 October |
| 3 |
16 October |
23 October |
| 4 |
23 October |
6 November |
| 5 |
6 November |
20 November |
| 6 |
20 November |
4 December |
| 7 |
4 December |
18 December |
| 8 |
18 December |
8 January |
| |
|
|
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