Can you crack it? - GCHQ

tlrBeta

tlrBeta

tlrBeta

Soldato
Joined
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Location
Birmingham
Not sure if anyone has noticed this yet, GCHQ trying to advertise more awareness by creating a little test for possible applicants. Your task is to crack the code:

http://www.canyoucrackit.co.uk/

Personally, I have never really attempted any code breaking and as such I already know this is way out of my league.

Maybe someone could share some basic knowledge on how to approach a code of this sort?
 
I found it amusing that on the BBC article they pointed out this was launched in 'secret' on 3 Nov. Clearly with the 12 Dec deadline looming they realised no one had really taken part yet so were getting desperate for some attention.
 
looks like a filter approach would be a good place to start on this one.

To approach this code firstly copy it exactly into a string in python, vb, whatever.
The rule is that it is one word so you know not to look for breaks, which is a positive.
Because it is only one word, that means you are also looking at a lot of filler, useless pairs inserted for no reason. The filler is likely to be repeated many time through the code, so the next task is to run frequency checks on the code, and pic out the most frequent, and rarest character pairs. At this point you should start to analyse the purely alpha, numeric, and alphanumeric string pairs for frequency....

ok i might have a go :)
 
Last edited:
ps I got quite far into the selection process for one of our mi's (the most exciting one), but I backed out after realising the stress levels would probably break me...
 
oulton said:
ps I got quite far into the selection process for one of our mi's (the most exciting one), but I backed out after realising the stress levels would probably break me...
Click to expand...

Isn't one of the requirements of the process to only tell your very closest family members about it? Pretty sure that doesn't cover blabbing on an internet forum :p
 
Then you get denied DV clearance by a aryan security officer unhappy that you went to Turkey with someone called "Adil" or "Raj". Quote - "Thats not an anglo saxon name is it?".
 
It's not "password", or "password123"

GCHQ are evidently more wiley than the majority of people at my old work...

Worrying thing is I imagine the brainless office peeps at my old work earnt more than you would at GCHQ :(

Edit: Christmas smilies :D
 
Hexadecimal pairs, the 2 seprated grids may be significant.

Will have a crack at this later (pun intended)
 
paddy said:
It's not "password", or "password123"

GCHQ are evidently more wiley than the majority of people at my old work...

Worrying thing is I imagine the brainless office peeps at my old work earnt more than you would at GCHQ :(

Edit: Christmas smilies :D
Click to expand...

I was invited for a GCHQ interview (1st round thingy) but declined in the end for various factors, not least the pay was pretty miserable and I also seem to remember quite a lot less vacation time (4 weeks?) than most UK companies.

Instead I did a PhD in Switzerland got paid 50% more.
 
OCR'd it if it helps anyone.

eb 04 af c2 bf a3 81 ec
Oc fe c1 75 f9 31 cO ba
dO c1 ca O8 8a 1c Oc 8a
fe c1 75 e8 e9 5c 00 00
00 5c 58 3d 41 41 41 41
75 3b 5a 89 dl 89 e6 89
d1 89 df 29 cf 31 c0 31
8a 14 06 8a 34 1e 88 34
8a 1c 16 8a 17 30 da 88
d8 fe cO cd 80 90 90 e8
00 01 00 00 31 c9 88 Oc
ef be ad de 02 04 Oc 00
3c 04 88 1c 04 88 3c Oc
00 89 e3 81 c3 04 00 00
75 43 58 3d 42 42 42 42
df 29 cf f3 a4 89 de 89
db 31 d2 fe cO 02 1c 06
06 88 14 1e 00 f2 30 f6
17 47 49 75 de 31 db 89
9d ff ff ff 41 41 41 41
 
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