National Cipher Challenge
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The National Cipher Challenge is an annual cryptographic competition organised by the University of Southampton School of Mathematics. Competitors attempt to break cryptograms published on the competition website. In the 2005/06 challenge, 795 teams participated. To participate, you must be in full time education and under the age of 18 on the 31st August of the year that the challenge finishes.
The competition is organised into 8 challenges, which are further subdivided into parts A and B. The part A challenge consists of a relatively simple cryptogram that is intended for beginning cryptographers. In later challenges the cryptograms become harder to break. In the past, part A cryptograms have been encrypted with the Caesar cipher, the Affine cipher, the Keyword cipher, the Transposition cipher and the Vigenère cipher.
The part B challenges are intended to be harder. These begin with relatively simple substitution ciphers, including the Bacon cipher and Polybius square, before moving on to transposition ciphers, Playfair ciphers and polyalphabetic ciphers such as the Vigenère cipher and the Alberti cipher. In the later stages of the competition, the ADFGVX cipher, the Solitaire cipher, the Double Playfair cipher, the Hill cipher, and versions of the Enigma and Fialka cipher machines have all been used.
Small cash prizes are awarded at random to entrants submitting a correct solution for each part A challenge. Leaderboards for the part B challenges are also compiled, based on how accurate solutions are and how quickly the entrant broke the cipher. Prizes are awarded to the top three entrants at the end of the challenge. In the 2005/06 challenge, first prize was an IBM laptop, second prize was £1,000 and third prize £700.
After the challenge, a prize-giving dinner is held at Bletchley Park. The winners of the top prizes are invited as are other randomly selected entrants. The day consists of lectures, subjects of which include the likes of the Semantic Web, World War II cryptography and computer programming, lunch for the main prize winners and the prize-giving ceremony.
Sponsors of the competition include GCHQ, IBM, British Computer Society, Bletchley Park, Trinity College, Cambridge and EPSRC.
