Magnus Ekhall just solved a second box from the Elite Box challenge, the successor of the still running Crypto Box Challenge. In both challenges, the participants decrypt three short texts by shifting the rows and columns in a small text square. Retrieving the original text has proven to be a real challenge, as even a few shuffles create a true brain-teasing puzzle.

The Crypto Box Challenge started in 2007, and over the years, participants from 26 different countries have entered the challenge. We therefore started the Elite Box Challenge in 2018. However, the Elite Boxes are far more difficult than the Crypto Boxes, and cryptanalytic techniques can be useful to solve them. We therefore recommend to first train your skills on the Crypto Box Challenge, although not mandatory.

You can enter the Crypto Box challenge and the Elite Box Challenge. The Dutch/Nederlandse pages of the website also have the Crypto Box challenge and the Elite Box Challenge but the texts in the Dutch and English version are identical to make the challenge equally difficult for everyone.

The Government Communications Headquarters has announced its annual series of Christmas puzzles. Their job is making and breaking codes, and providing secure communications, but once a year, a GCHQ team of smart puzzlers creates a series of true brainteasers. The challenge is designed to tickle the interest of young people, age 11 to 18, who must work in teams and use all their out-of-the-box thinking skills, some of which are useful to become a spy. However, those age 19 to 99 can also put their teeth in the challenge, as there's no age limit on using your brain.

To know what you're up against, and to train your skills, download the 2022 and 2023 challenges and their solutions, to get an idea of the various types of puzzles and how to find solutions to solve them. Of course, each year, the creative GCHQ brains come up with new types of puzzles, but the previous challenges might inspire you to find ways to solve the 2024 challenge.

The 2024 Christmas Challenge goes live to the general public on Wednesday 11 December 2024, but schools can already register to get early access to the challenge and lesson planning materials. For more details and how schools can register, visit the GCHQ Christmas Challenge Page.

Jürgen Müller just published the Enigma Touch, a single-board design of no less than 13 different Enigma versions. These include the early Enigma D version, the four Abwehr versions, the Railway Enigma, the military versions Enigma I, M3 and M4, and the various commercial K versions, including the Swiss K and the Japanese Tirpitz. The plugboard is also detachable, which enables the use of a wooden Enigma case where the plugboard is placed vertically.

However, Jürgen resurrected many other machines. The Vintage Computing section includes the Tiny ACE, the LittleGP-30, RPC-4000, LGP-21, Telefunken Rollkugel, and a tiny optical punched paper tape reader. There's also the 65F02, a 6502 programmed in an FPGA, which emulates the legendary groundbreaking MOS 6502 8-bit processor, used on the KIM-1, Apple II, Commodore PET, and many other computers.

He also developed the Asteroids Mini, Pong, and the Verticade arcade console with a whole range of 1970s and 80s games. Other projects include his STM Scanning Tunneling Microscope, and even a breadboard watch he rightly calls the Nerd’s Wristwatch.

Visit the Enigma touch page to discover all the nuts and bolts of this wonderful project. Although the website is fully in English, the name e-basteln comes from the German word for tinkering, crafting or creating, which is exactly what Jürgen has done with passions in the past 25 years. Moreover, all projects come with detailed documentation. So do visit the e-Basteln website.

Operation Tinkel Bell has moved to the Cipher Machines and Cryptology website. Originally created on blogger, the move offers more flexibility for HTML, maintenance, and a broader audience. If you love spy stories, secret operations and cryptology, this adventure is a perfect mix.

The year is 1964. Operation Tinker Bell takes place at the height of the Cold War and you are assigned to the operation as COMSEC officer. Your task is to decrypt the message traffic between intelligence agencies, their stations abroad and agents in the field.

This sounds harder than it actually is. All required crypto tools, keys and clear instructions are provided, and you get the proper training to work with state-of-the-art crypto equipment and manual ciphers. If you successfully decrypt all messages, you name is engraved in the Wall of Honor.

You will experience spy tradecraft first-hand. CIA transmitter sites in West Germany, illegal border crossings, fake passports, safe houses, the dreaded East-German Stasi and Czech StB secret police. British intelligence helps to arrange clandestine meetings, the U.S. Army Security Agency provides SIGINT support and some USMLM operations don't take the rules of engagement too seriously. The Cold War at its best, authentic details, many historical photos, as real as it gets.

Great news for those who love cryptologic challenges! The new edition of theCODEBREAKERS is online. The contest is dedicated to Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rózycki, and Henryk Zygalski, the three Polish codebreakers who were in 1932 the first to break the encryption of de German Enigma cipher machine.

The contest website features lectures where you can learn more about the history of cryptography, different codes, and of course the tasks and codes. There are three levels, each with its own starting date, and the website is now available in nine languages.

You can already register and play the single-players trial level, and to participate in the contest, you register a team in the levels you want solve, and you can invite two more players for a three-person team. Each level consists of several stages, each with lectures and tasks to solve. The BASIC level game with tasks in English will start soon.

Make sure to be prepared and registered in time for the start of the competition:

• TRIAL Open
• BASIC 21 October
• ADVENTURE 15 November
• ENIGMA 29 November

Visit theCODEBREAKERS website for more information and follow their Facebook to catch the latest news. You can also promote their website and contest by sharing their poster and flyer. See also the Codebreakers introduction video below.

Software developer Craig Longhurst has always had a keen interest in all things technical. In 2002 he got the idea of building a working Enigma, the well-known German cipher machine of which various civil and military versions were produced from 1923 throughout the Second World War.

Craig decided to build the famous Enigma I but designing the rotors with their internal wiring and contacts proved complex. Over the years, he learned laser cutting for the rotor contact holes and later 3D printing for the discs. These were only a few of the many obstacles that required quite a bit of work and imagination, not only to construct the electrical parts, but also various mechanical components, all made with Meccano parts.

Although he considered the rotors the most difficult part, it would be quite an understatement to call the Meccano construction of the Enigma, the keyboard with numerous switches, the contacts and lamp panel "easy". The result of his creativity was a fully working Meccano Enigma I in 2024.

Craig's Enigma is published in the Constructor Quarterly issue No 145 and if you're interested in Enigma and Meccano, you're in for a real treat. The issue has 16 pages on his Enigma, with 26 excellent highly detailed photos from all parts, accompanied by information about the development and construction. Available as back issue, sent all over the world. In the video you get an idea of how complex Craig's project was, and why it took 22 years to complete his award-winning Enigma.

When George Lasry, Norbert Biermann and Satoshi Tomokiyo started deciphering more than fifty letters they found in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, they unexpectedly discovered that these were letters presumed lost, written by the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587, painting circa 1559).

In 1567, Mary Stuart was forced to abdicate, and imprisoned in the Scottish Lochleven castle, but escaped the next year to England. Since Mary had a claim to the English throne, she was a threat to her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, who kept her captive in England. Still, Mary remained involved in plots to take the throne.

In 1586, Anthony Babington, the leader of a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, established a secret communications channel for Mary Stuart. However, Sir Francis Walsingham, secretary and spymaster of Elizabeth, had placed several spies in Mary's circle, compromising the Babington plot. When Mary did not object to the assassination of Elizabeth in a letter to Babington, she sealed her fate. Her conspirators were executed in September 1586 and Mary Stuart, 44 years old, followed on 8 February 1587.

Mary was known to correspond with here allies through encrypted letters, but many of those were believed to have been lost. Most of the recently discovered letters were addressed to Michel de Castelnau, the French ambassador to Londen. Although they are 445 years old, deciphering them still proved to be a complex task for the codebreakers. The team later found plaintext versions of some of those letters in the British Archives, leaked to Walsingham by a mole in the French embassy. These confirmed the correct deciphering of some messages from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

A fascinating story of deceit and treason, uncovered by the three talented codebreakers in 2023. Their codebreaking achievement is published in detail on Cryptologia. On the Cryptiana website are the ciphers of Mary, Queen of Scots, the discovery and codebreaking of 50+ letters, and simulated paper-and-pencil codebreaking of a ciphered letter. See also the DECRYPT project.

Below the excellent talk by George Lasry, explaining in detail how they deciphered the messages, and to understand the animosities between Mary and Elizabeth, watch the BBC documentary.