About the Challenge
Welcome to the National Cipher Challenge, a nationwide, online codebreaking competition, which will run from October 15th 2015 to January 7th 2016. We will open for online registration on October 5th.
The competition is a great extension activity (or a fantastic maths club project) that can be tackled by students in teams or on their own. There is no charge to register or take part, and all you need to get involved is a reasonably modern web browser.
This year competitors will be challenged to help Harry track down the Reichsdoktor in postwar Berlin. His enemies are cunning and the story will unfold in a series of short encrypted messages. Competitors will work with Harry to decipher these documents in order to untangle the truth.
You can download lesson plans and notes on codebreaking from the Black Chamber on the competition website. This is the competition library and, alongside the challenges themselves, it provides a range of supporting materials that provide a good introduction to the skills needed by a successful code-breaker.
Entrants can take part alone or in teams of any size. To take part you will need to register on the website, and your account also gives you access to the forum where you can discuss a whole range of things connected to the competition, and quite a few that are totally unrelated.
Everyone involved in the challenge can have their own account to allow them access to the forum, but by default only the team captain can post entries for a team with multiple members. If you want to allow other members of the team to edit and submit entries then the team captain can use our Team Builder to invite others to join. Details are given below.
Competition Schedule
Registration will open online on 5th October 2015 and the first challenge will be published at 3.15pm on October 15th. Challenges will be set periodically on the web-site www.cipher.maths.soton.ac.uk in the Challenges section, following this schedule:
|
Challenge |
Publication date 15:15 on |
Solution deadline 23:59 on |
|
1 |
15/10/2015 |
21/10/2015 |
|
2 |
22/10/2015 |
04/11/2015 |
|
3 |
05/11/2015 |
11/11/2015 |
|
4 |
12/11/2015 |
18/11/2015 |
|
5 |
19/11/2015 |
25/11/2015 |
|
6 |
26/11/2015 |
02/12/2015 |
|
7 |
03/12/2015 |
16/12/2015 |
|
8 |
17/12/2015 |
07/01/2016 |
Points are awarded for speed and accuracy (with accuracy more important) but you do not have to rush to download the first challenges immediately as you have a day or two in which you can still get top marks. In later challenges speed will become important, and the full schedule of marks will be published so you can see how quickly you need to get started in each round.
The first two challenges should be thought of as a “warm-up” exercise and will not count in the final leader board rankings or for the award of main prizes, however it is still worth tackling rounds one and two as they give excellent practice and do develop the storyline. There will also be a range of smaller prizes for those challenges and you will still be able to download certificate recording your team’s performance.
As usual we apologise in advance if your school holidays clash with the schedule, but hopefully not too many of you will be affected.
Registration
To take part you will need to register for the competition on our registration page:
https://www.cipher.maths.soton.ac.uk/register
This will be open from October 5thth, and you will need to provide the following information:
Username: This will be the name you use to log on to the site to post comments, and also to submit your entries, check feedback and to print your certificate. Choose something memorable. You can share this info among the team, but do not let anyone else have it as they can use it to pose as you!
Password: Again this is for logging on. Choose it carefully and keep it secret.
Email address: This will be used to confirm your registration so it must be an active account you can check to authorise the account. If we need to contact you this is how we will do it so add the account
Teacher contact: Give the name of a teacher we can write to if we need to check anything. You should get their permission first! We don't usually do this unless you win a prize. If you are home schooled give us a parent or carer's name here and write home schooled in the school name field. You will still need to give us contact details in the address fields below.
School: We have provided a drop down list, sorted alphabetically by school. If yours is missing let us know!
We also ask for some other contact info that is useful if you win a prize/
We will also ask you to say on the registration form how you would like your name to appear on the leader boards and on your certificates. The options are to show your first name, your full name or just the team name (choose “none”), and you can choose a different convention for the online leader board and the certificate.
Why would I click the “Ineligible for a prize” box on the registration form
If you are a teacher who is registering in order to keep an eye on the forum, or a Cipher Challenge alumnus who is now too old to take part but just can’t keep away, or ineligible for some other reason, then please tick this box so that the computer doesn’t award you a prize by mistake! It is embarrassing for us to have to ask for it back. Thanks.
Teams and solo entries
If you are taking part on your own you only need to register as above and this will create a team of 1 with you as Captain. The default team name will be your user ID but you can change that by editing your Profile. If you want to enter as a group you should each sign up for an account and choose one member of the team as Captain. The Captain should change his or her team name to the one you all want, and can then use the Team Profile tab to invite you all to join the team. Once you accept the invite you will be part of that team throughout the competition. You can do this at any time but you cannot transfer any score that you have gained yourself to the team you join.
You do not have to all be at the same school, we will use the Captain’s school and email address for any communications with the team. The names of the members of the team will appear on the leader boards and certificates according to the individual preferences of the team members as discussed above. Anyone in the team can post a solution to the Challenge, and since your marks can’t go down as a result there is never any harm in this. You can also all read the feedback and download individual certificates in the Black Chamber.
The structure of the competition
You will find the Challenges on the Challenge page. Each round of the competition will come in two parts, Part A and Part B. Think of them as the “easy” and the “hard” challenges (or the “hard” and “much harder” challenges if you prefer). Part A challenges will consist of communications between Harry and his friends as they try to find the Reichsdoktor. You can expect these messages to be fairly lightly encrypted, at least at first, although in the latter stages of the competition security will be tightened and you will find the Part A ciphers harder to crack. Part B consists of intercepts that Harry is using in the hunt. At the start of the challenge the encryption is not too hard to crack, but as the net closes you will find that they use much higher security. You may find that learning to use a spreadsheet or even to programme will be of particular value in tackling the later challenges.
Submitting your solutions
You can submit solutions to either part A or part B at any time during a round by typing them into the submissions page. If you need to resubmit (because you found a mistake, or because we pointed one out to you) you can use the same form. Just paste your entry as text in the appropriate box on the form. It doesn’t matter how you format your answer – with or without punctuation and spaces and whether or not you use capital letters, however you must only type or paste in the exact text of a decrypt of the message. It is a good idea to use a simple text editor to type up your solution (rather than something like Word) as the spell checker sometimes tries to change what you are typing and any “mistake” in the text might be deliberate. Don’t try to correct any errors you think we have made, always type in an exact decryption of the text. Don’t try to tell us what cipher we used, or to ask us a question, or to say how you solved the cipher in the entry form, we don’t read it and it will be marked as an error in the solution. If you need to get hold of us you can post a message on the forum or send us an email at
Getting help
We offer online feedback on submissions during each round to help you if you make mistakes. The feedback is delayed so you will lose points if you rely on it rather than trying to correct your own errors quickly, but it can be useful if you are on the right track (and speed doesn’t matter for part A challenges which are only scored for accuracy). The feedback consists of a score for accuracy, together with a copy of your submission with the first error highlighted. The feedback also contains a link to your certificate for the round. At the end of each round we will publish the official decrypts of part A and part B on the Solutions page.
Participants often get stuck on a Challenge but, as in real life, sometimes a good night's rest is all you need. Other times you might need more practical help and can turn to the website for clues, either hidden in earlier rounds of the competition, or posted (by us) as comments on the forum. We ask you not to post hints of your own without checking them with us first as this will spoil the Challenge for others. Anyone posting solutions or links to solutions on our site or elsewhere may be barred from the site and disqualified from the competition - we do search for them and do find them!
Scoring
Each of the two challenges in a round (part A and part B) are scored for accuracy in the same way. We strip out all the non-ascii characters, spaces and punctuation from your solution, convert it to lower case and compare that string of letters with our solution, which we have treated the same way. The more similar they are the higher the score you will get, and if they are identical you will score 100% for that challenge. If you spot a mistake in your answer you can submit again - we only ever take your most accurate answer into account and accuracy beats speed in every case, though speed is also important in the part B competition. In part B we look at all your submissions for the round and find those with the highest mark. We then take the first one of those that you submitted and award you points depending on how quickly you submitted it, according to a schedule that is published with each challenge. There are no speed points for part A, only for part B. You can find your scores for each round in the feedback section of the site, and we will publish a leader board for each round. The first two rounds are a warm-up so the points will not count for the overall leader boards but from round 3 we will publish a Championship leader board based on your total points from then in each of the competitions.
Prizes
The GCHQ prize of £1,000 will be awarded to the top individual entry this year as measured by performance in the part B competition. Other prizes will be announced shortly.
The Prizegiving
As usual we hope to be hosting a prizegiving ceremony for selected participants at Bletchley Park. Dates will be announded as soon as possible and some tickets will be available by lottery. You can apply for them online at
https://www.cipher.maths.soton.ac.uk/tickets
How many can enter?
Teams of any size and composition may enter, and a school can enter as many teams as it wishes. Teams can be run from one or several individual accounts (see above) and inter-school teams are also allowed, indeed, encouraged.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it cost to take part?
At the moment we are lucky to have several generous sponsors, and the costs of the competition are covered by the School of Mathematics at the University of Southampton so there is no charge to take part.
When does the competition start?
Registration opens on October 5th. The first part of the competition will be published at 3.15 on Thursday October 15th. There is no need to rush to download it as you have one or two days in which to submit to achieve full speed marks. Often the website is overloaded for the first half an hour or so, and it probably pays to wait out the rush. The part B prizes will be allocated based on performance in rounds 3-8 so if you miss the first couple of challenges it won’t matter too much.
When will the Challenges be published?
See the schedule above.
How long do we have to complete each challenge?
The deadline for each Challenge is 11.59pm on the day before the next Challenge is published, The number of points you score in part B depends on how early you submit your best attempt.
What age group is it aimed at?
Principally this is an extension activity for older pupils, but the early stages of the competition are aimed at a wide audience and there is something for everyone. We have had bright year 6 pupils do well on early rounds and this prepares them for further achievement in future competitions, though it is definitely not written or intended for the junior school age group. Many pupils return year after year as they try to improve on the number of stages they can successfully complete, and the staged certificates give everyone an incentive to keep going as long as possible. There are also some small prizes awarded at random to a few participants each week as an added incentive.
Is this appropriate for a Math Club activity?
Certainly. The entire math club could enter as a team or you could divide up into smaller groups and use the math club meetings to discuss techniques and strategies.
Can pupils enter on their own?
Yes, we get many solo entrants and teachers do not have to be involved, but we do ask for the name of a teacher contact for prize administration.
Do team members have to all come from the same school?
No, in the past we have had several teams made up of members of different schools and colleges, and this is great. We do ask for the name of at least one of the schools and a teacher contact for prize administration, and, for now at least, the team captain’s school will get all the credit!
Does everyone in a team need their own account?
No, but everyone can have one! The team is principally associated with one account holder (the team captain), but team captains can invite others to join the team at any point including when it is set up. You don’t need to have an individual account to be associated with a team, as you can be listed as a member on the team captain’s account. You do however need an account if you want to be able to post comments to the forum or to post solutions for the team. You also need one to log in to see feedback and get certificates.
Who else is taking part
Click on the map on the home page to see the schools taking part. It might be worth zooming out as sometimes we get schools overseas who enter for the fun of it even thought they can’t win a prize.
Where can I find out more?
The website is stocked with information about the competition, including the rules and regulations, some notes on codebreaking, some lesson plans and a guide to programming for codebreakers. We will also publish updates about the competition on the home page www.cipher.maths.soton.ac.uk.
It is also worth taking part in the forums, which we will monitor and where we will publish occasional updates and answers to common questions.