UK Intelligence Agency Recruiting Hackers via Online Code
Can you crack it?
Intelligence agency GCHQ this morning announced the creation of a web-based code-cracking game in an effort to round up candidates appropriate for espionage. The agency, which reports to the foreign secretary and works with MI5 and MI6, usually recruits staff through the likes of Oxbridge or Cambridge, but has decided to go a different route this year and open things up to self-taught hackers. The viral website is an attempt to identify people that might be a good fit for the agency. Players who successfully crack the code are sent to the GCHQ website and invited to apply for a position with GCHQ.
The Register reports that the campaign, accessible via www.canyoucrackit.co.uk, is being run with no GCHQ branding in an effort to keep it anonymous and ensure that applying for a career in the department is not the primary reason for the participant taking on the challenge.
"The desired result of the campaign is to reach those people with the right skills and mindset, and to encourage them to find out more about a career with GCHQ," the agency is quoted as saying. "Cracking the code is not an assessment, rather a way to connect potential applicants with GCHQ as an employer. There is a level of difficulty to crack the code, but once the code is cracked, wide dissemination of the solution is anticipated in online communities. The discussion this promotes should raise additional interest in GCHQ as an employer and generate future recruitment enquiries."
The statement adds that any applicants who have engaged in illegal hacking will not be eligible to continue in the recruitment process. If you're looking to take part, the deadline for solving the puzzle is December 11. However, you might want to get a move on, as it appears some people don't need 10 days to break the code. In fact, they didn't even need one day. According to the Telegraph, GCHQ has confirmed that a number of people have solved the puzzle just a few hours after it went online. GCHQ is reportedly looking to hire approximately 35 spies with expert code-breaking skills over the next few months.
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There are a lot of people in the UK ineligible to apply for the position (not only because of illegal hacking, but also to do with citizenship etc). I for one can't apply because of it -_-
Can't be worse than the Inspector Clouseau who detailed Katia Zatuliveter.
I've said too much.