Thanks
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This has been an amazing challenge although i must admit that chapter 10 is like 10x harder than all the others!
Thank you! Really glad to hear that! (And yes, I do mean both parts!) Harry
A huge thank you to the sponsors, as well as to Harry and the rest of the Cipher Challenge team for this amazing competition. The excitement generated by the competition lasts in my school for weeks, and students aged 11 to 18 take part. The accessibility of the first few weeks means that new participants can jump in each year, and the subsequent gradual increase in difficulty means that they develop a significant number of skills over the course of just one Cipher Challenge year. The toughness of the final rounds makes any success achieved there a worthy achievement and I know that many students at my school have talked about what they have learnt through the latter stages on their university applications, even if they weren’t one of the final winners. Judging by the forums, there are still lots of people working hard at the 10B cipher this year which, at the time of writing this post, is just over 8 days after it was first published online. In a world where everyone is used to getting answers so quickly online, it is wonderful to have so many people immersed in a single problem for days on end. This shows incredible resilience on their part and, as someone who believes strongly that intellectual development comes from thinking hard about something, even when completely stuck, the personal benefit these participants must obtain is surely considerable.
The quality of the puzzles and the story mean that there is a lot of intrinsic value in the competition, but the lure of the big prizes should not be underestimated, and this certainly helps the Cipher Challenge to command attention. The competition is now in its 23rd year, and I hope that it runs for many more as there is nothing else quite like it. Thank you again to all the sponsors and to everyone else who makes it possible.
Thanks Cribbage, and a huge thanks to you and all the other teachers who do so much to encourage your charges to get involved! Best wishes, Harry
Thank you to all involved for all the work that clearly goes into this every year. It’s been really fun working on cracking all of the codes and following along with the story. We’re still working on 10B but are hopefully we’ll finally solve the mystery!
Before this challenge, I had an idea of what crryptography meant. I was aware of famous examples such as Enigma, but I probably coudn’t solve anything more complex than a Caesae cipher. When I started reading about ciphers using the handbook provided, a fire was lit. All of a sudden, the competition was all I could think about, and all of a sudden, cryptography became my biggest passion. It all just clicked. I’ve always been interested in maths, but this challenge has given me guidence as to the specific areas which I am particularly interested in, as well as sparking my passion in cryptography. I only wish there were more challenges like this available online. The sheer quality of the challenges and obscurity-levels of the hints (apart from maybe 10B) have been perfect. Thank you so much for making this amazing competition (I can only imagine how much work went into making the challenges).
P.S. I’m still very stuck on 10B and praying that Case File 10.8 is at least alightly less obscure than the others for 10B! 🙂
Thank you Harry and Jodie for everything you’ve done for the competition!!! Even though at times we hated you for the hard puzzles we really appreciate all the work you put into this every year. This was our first year but we’ll definitely be back next time!! Thank you again, DSSE+C
We really appreciate it, thank you! Harry
Thanks for 10B was a tricky one !
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