This is one of the times of the year when I get my wallet out and give a small donation to some or other charity. One year it was Combat Stress and another it was a local British veterans group or a special baby unit or whatever.
This time I’m going to get the readers of this blog pick the charity that’s going to get a crisp ten pound note from yours truly.
But there is a catch, not a big one but one that might be fun for some people. To get to decide where my ten pound charity donation goes you have to solve this cryptographic puzzle.
I haven’t done one of these for absolutely ages, probably for a couple of years but they are fun to put together and hopefully fun for you to solve. Also with all the attention now being focused on the phenomenon of Number Stations by Iran or the US or both that use a numerical cipher to conceal messages, this sort of ciphering and message transmission method is now pretty topical.
Here’s the rules of the contest:
You have two weeks from the date of publication of this piece on either of the sites I’m involved with to decrypt the message and send me what you believe the message is. To make things fairer nobody who works for UK GCHQ or similar agencies elsewhere is allowed to enter as they would have an unfair advantage over others who might want to take part.
When the contest is over I will explain exactly how I encrypted the text so that you can have a go using the same techniques. You never know it could be a handy thing to know about.
So decrypt the message and send what you think the decrypted text is to the following address CipherComp@protonmail.me
Please say what charity you would want me to donate to in your entry. Also because not everyone lives in a free country (I’m looking at you Britain) please also state whether or not you mind being announced as winner should you win (you don’t have to use or give your real name just give a ‘handle’ that you wish to be referred as)
I’ll pick out all the correct answers when the contest ends, number them and get someone unconnected to the competition to draw one of numbers corresponding to a winning entry randomly out of my bowler hat. That person will be the final winner and who will get to decide which charity gets my cash.
Here’s the ciphertext – Have fun.
Ciphertext March 2026
231314 / 2707216 / 354527 / 358727 / 1775211 / 449527 / 51512
342718 / 3110210 / 1115925 / 11145312 / 3950213 / 57024 / 452129 / 347511 / 158313 / 2660220 / 1668312 / 5535 / 451923 /
1993218 / 19911 / 1115925 / 226828 / 2648220 / 271513 / 442112 / 326111 / 4415114 / 1114817 / 1125223 / 333913 / 11261114 / 2660220 / 396013 / 4510220 / 328214 / 318521 / 241229 / 247741 / 24624 / 388224 / 446429 / 19911 / 4499117 / 4371220 /
264729 / 514923 / 39171213 / 3281210 / 21818 / 235628 / 449527 / 4346227 / 11252223 / 346028 / 32717 / 383811 / 3495217 /
2707216 / 2397121 / 512511 / 1759213 / 377913 / 271727 / 264723 / 253523 / 4283111 / 4499117 / 4371220 / 231314 / 396415 / 354527 / 444228 / 1115925 / 1114523 / 125815 / 340612 / 396414 / 240418 / 2641221 / 27626 / 264723 / 2606210 / 3541111 / 3489111 / 4480219 / 541923 / 1114523 / 253523 / 36612 / 389927 /337514 Cipher Text Message ends.