GCHQ put a puzzle on the radio to lure recruits — and you may render it here .

The hear bureau is pushing hard to recruit a more various stave , especially women .

LONDON — GCHQ , the British government ’s listening authority , has broadcast a teaser in an effort to encourage potential spies — in particular young female child — to engage a career in the highly - classified organisation .

The challenge wassupplied to BBC Radio 4 ’s " Today " programme , which circulate a puzzler every morning as part of its regular " Puzzle for Today " one-armed bandit .

Monday ’s teaser was submitted by the National Cyber Security Centre ( NCSC ) , a lately - created GCHQ zep - variance dedicate to protect decisive UK infrastructure from cyber attack .

The NCSC is specifically trying to pique the pursuit of secondary school day girls and submitted its puzzle as part of a effort aimed at girlfriend aged 12 to 13 .

Here ’s the textbook of the puzzle :

Thirteen rotters stole my answer and they ROTated it by 4 and then ROTated it by 10 and all I have left isUccrziqy hc ozzQmpsfTwfgh Uwfzg!- can you help me get my answer back ?

How it work

Although NCSC is a brand - new agency focalise on the internet , this puzzle is in reality thou of years old .

It ’s an example of a " Caesar cipher " , in which every letter of a message is shifted ( or spread out , as per the pun above ) through the ABC by a secure routine of letters .

" Thirteen stinker " is a reference to the usual " ROT13 " cipher , which shifts letters precisely halfway along the first rudiment ( a = n , n = a ) , and is a hint that the puzzle is dealing with a regular , 26 - missive alphabet .

To follow the cues above , you have to take each letter of the alphabet of the rudiment ten spaces back ( so the first letter , U , becomes K ) , and then another four spaces ( So K becomes G ) .

The answer

Apply this to every letter in the puzzle , and you get :

Good portion to all CyberFirst Girls !

It ’s a slimly sleazy payoff that plug their " CyberFirst " campaign , but still : if you had the wherewithal to work that out by yourself , you may have a snap at being a spy one day .

you’re able to read more about the NCSC rivalry here .

Why girl , and why now ?

Scoping out talent using puzzles is an one-time trick of British intelligence services , dating back at least to the Second World War , where Bletchley Parkrecruited code - ledgeman via The Daily Telegraph ’s deep crossword .

Here , GCHQ is trying to kick upstairs puzzle - resolution in young people , with something playfulness and easy to understand . Rotational ciphers are not good encryption by any modern standard . It withdraw a tiny amount of cypher power to blast through all possible combinations and give you an answer . More sophisticated variants , using grids and other numerical processes , will avail , but not much .

Still , NCSC ’s hope is that it will plant the mind that a career in cyber security , and particularly one at a security agency , could be for them .

The federal agency has acknowledge it has a variety problem : the latest official figures show that just 35 % of staff are cleaning lady , and only 10 of its 55 top - level officials .

It is also struggling to recruit overall , having recruited only 500 faculty to 640 vacancy , whilebleeding top talent to the likes of Facebook and Google , who can tender staff five multiplication the money .

mononuclear phagocyte system on Parliament ’s Security and Intelligence committeewrote in their most recent reportthat improving diversity in the agencies , by appealing more to woman and ethnic minority , is more than windowpane dressing .

They concluded that a wider range of background provides a " competitory advantage " against rival states and bad actor , and so is really an issue of national security itself .

Read next on Business Insider : endeavor to spot the hidden fagot of Hearts in this tricky puzzle that is stumping the cyberspace