Latest news with #GCHQ
Telegraph
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
100 years of the Telegraph crossword: A week-long celebration
This week 100 years ago, the Telegraph decided on a novelty: a 'six-week diversion' to boost newspaper sales during the summer. The crossword was born. A century and almost 31,000 puzzles later, it has proven a remarkable survivor. To celebrate this centenary, we will be publishing a host of special features, including a 30-day challenge on our puzzles page to solve 30 very special crosswords from our history. Try to finish them all. If you are completely new to crosswords, fear not, for there will be an interactive guide to solving cryptic clues. And once you have got the hang of it, at the end of the week you will be able to try out a new puzzle created by the very best in the business: GCHQ – and it comes with a very special prize attached. We hope you enjoy solving them as much as we enjoy setting them. Here's to the next 100 years of the Telegraph crossword!
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Only 1 in 3 can work out which hat contains the cat in baffling brainteaser
A mind-boggling brainteaser which requires a sharp-mind and critical thinking skills has left the majority of Brits scratching their heads - but can you work it out? Discover whether you have the mind of a modern-day genius with this impossibly challenging brainteaser that most people fail. Solving puzzles and riddles might seem like nothing more than a boredom buster, but they're actually a great form of mental exercise. In fact, some studies have even found that solving brainteasers like this one can improve your concentration levels and attention span, by positively impacting the central nervous system. So while it won't turn you into a rocket scientist or get you into Oxford University, it's still worth attempting. However, this particular brainteaser isn't for the average Joe - and you'll need a sky-high IQ to crack it. So, let's dive straight in... The image above shows three red hats, each containing a black cat. As previously reported, this puzzle first made its appearance on the YouTube channel 'Mend Your Decisions', and comes with three statements - along with the following advice: "Exactly one of the statements is true. Exactly one hat contains a cat." Hat 1: The cat is in this hat. Hat 2: The cat is not in this hat. Hat 3: The cat is not in hat 1. Feeling a little lost already? That's understandable, as only one in three Brits will actually be able to solve this. So, which of the hats contains the cat? The possible answers are: Hat 1. Hat 2. Hat 3. None of them. Not enough information. You must initially consider the possibility of the cat being in all the hats. Following that, you need to determine which of the earlier statements is accurate and which two are incorrect. Once you're done, you can check your answer at the bottom of the article. If that baffling brainteaser was no match for a smarty pants like yourself, check out this even harder puzzle created by the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). You'll need to be as smart as a spy to crack this one, and only have 20 seconds to do so. So, put your 007 thinking cap on and work out the hidden word amongst the below. Once you're done, you can check your answer here. Madison Saturn Do Nitrogen Exodus ANSWER: By process of elimination, let's say the cat is in hat 1. This implies that the first two statements are true, while the third is false - which means the cat can't be in hat one. Moving onto the second hat, if this is where the animal is then the first two statements are false, but the third is true by process of elimination. This implies that only one statement is accurate: the cat is in the second hat, which indeed turns out to be the solution.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Tech: Microsoft security flaw, record NZ losses from cyber
Cybersecurity expert Tony Grasso joins Kathryn to talk about Microsoft's recent Zero Day security flaw - who was affected and how has the company responded? The latest report into the cost of cybercrime has found the second-highest quarterly financial losses ever, at a cost of $7.8m. But that's just what's been reported. Tony also looks at how South Africa's digital transformation is making it a target for sophisticated cyber criminals and why Latin American organisations are facing an average of 2,700 attacks a month - almost 40% higher than the global average. Tony Grasso is Principal Consultant at cybersecurity firm TitaniumDefence. He worked at GCHQ in the UK and is a former Intelligence Officer in New Zealand. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Times
Most state secrets are nothing of the kind
As the double-decker chugged by Lambeth North Tube station, the conductor — this was in the 1970s — would announce the next stop with a chuckle: 'Century House, spies' corner!' The grimy office block housed MI6, which like all Britain's spy agencies then had no official existence. The journalist Duncan Campbell was prosecuted in 1978 for giving the barest outline of the work of GCHQ, Britain's signals intelligence outfit, though neither his scoop nor the bus conductor's joke would have surprised the KGB. During the Cold War it penetrated all our spy agencies. Secrecy is less obsessive now, though the rules — spectacularly breached over Afghan refugees and serving SAS officers — are still strict. The Cabinet Office publishes a helpful manual about definitions and handling of classified information. The DSMA (formerly D-Notice) website lists five topics, such as the storage and transport of nuclear weapons, where the media is asked, sensibly, to restrain its coverage. Real life is much messier. Deliberate leaks, active or merely passive, can serve a useful purpose. It is striking that the US C-17 military transport plane that flew from the US air force's main nuclear weapons storage facility in New Mexico to RAF Lakenheath last week kept its transponder switched on. Online plane-spotters gleefully publicised its flight path. Short of a Pentagon press release that the US was putting nuclear weapons back in Britain for the first time in 17 years, the message could have hardly been clearer. The ban-the-bomb lot may complain but an ostentatious sign that the Trump administration is boosting its commitment to our defence sends a useful warning to the Kremlin. Other leaks stem from shabbier motives. People in all walks of life like to boast. That is why a Grenadier Guards regimental newsletter proudly listed the names of officers now living their best lives with the SAS. Civil servants may be punctiliously tight-lipped but their political masters (and worse, their spin doctors) are easily tempted by the prospect of a favourable headline. Leaks get worse when information is shared between countries. Our American allies can be extraordinarily careless with our secrets, and vice versa. Contractors are even sloppier. The US-based Cyber Intel Systems lists on its website the exact colour shades used for Britain's classification labels: mischief-makers might find that handy. As I was leaving a meeting in spookdom, an official made me tear off the purple 'TOP SECRET' logo from a sheet of paper bearing something entirely innocuous, explaining 'we don't want to see that on the internet'. Even real secrets rarely matter for long. Today's troop movements are tomorrow's irrelevance. The most sizzling political intelligence ('Putin fell over again this morning') rapidly becomes stale: perhaps made redundant by subsequent events, or because it reaches the media. Much more important than the actual information is protecting sources and methods that may provide more nuggets in the future. Any clues to past activity may help enemies to work out current and future doings. Adversaries' ability to spot patterns and anomalies is the hottest topic in the world of secrets right now, and a top preoccupation for the incoming chief of MI6, Blaise Metreweli. The legal revolution of the 1990s, in which our spy agencies gained avowed status and oversight, and later websites and press offices, is dwarfed by the havoc wrought by the digital age on the staples of espionage: tradecraft and cover identities, which conceal secret activity in seemingly inconspicuous behaviour. • MoD hid Afghan leak from MPs For modern-day spies heading to work at our agencies' now far more imposing London headquarters, for example, the worry is not a jocular bus conductor but the CCTV on public transport. Coupled with face-recognition software, and with the other digital clues left in daily life (mobile phone use, electronic payments, credit ratings), and the unlimited availability of computer processing power and storage, this risks making even the most shadowy corners of government an open book. Our enemies can create and search databases to reveal and track our intelligence officers and their military counterparts, and those they work with. (Of course it helps if, as in the case of Afghans seeking refuge here, we create the database ourselves and distribute it by email.) Accountability is flimsy. Our best bet is parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), but past governments have starved it of clout and staff, with a budget frozen since 2013. The ISC issued a blistering protest in May, saying that it in effect had 'no oversight' of the £3 billion we spend annually on spookdom. Despite a judge's recommendation the government sidelined the ISC over the Afghan scandal (which may cost another billion pounds of public money). That was a scandalous breach of the rules: MI6 officers' names were leaked in the database. The ISC is now investigating that, and the government has promised more resources. It has even been able to meet the prime minister, for the first time, shockingly, in more than ten years. But to be truly effective, the ISC should oversee not only intelligence agencies, but other secret bits of government. The special forces, for example, escape regular scrutiny: too secret for parliament's defence committee, and never discussed publicly by ministers. Yet scandals, and self-serving memoirs, abound. Secrecy, like privacy, is essential to our society, economy, legal system and defence. But without proper scrutiny from judges and politicians it spares our decision-makers' blushes, not the victims of their blunders. We all lose out from that.
The Independent
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Former Whitehall chief Simon Case takes seat on red benches in House of Lords
Former top civil servant Simon Case has taken his seat in the House of Lords. The 46-year-old, who served four prime ministers, joins the independent crossbenches in the unelected chamber, which scrutinises legislation and acts as a check on the Government. Lord Case wore the traditional scarlet robes for the short introduction ceremony in the chamber, where he swore allegiance to the King. He was supported by former Whitehall chief Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Chartres, a retired bishop of London. Lord Case became cabinet secretary and head of the Civil Service aged just 41 in September 2020, having previously served as private secretary to the Duke of Cambridge. He had also worked for the GCHQ intelligence agency. He stepped down from the top Whitehall job at the end of 2024 on health grounds after a turbulent four years in the role, which included the Covid-19 pandemic, Tory infighting, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the death of Queen Elizabeth II. His tenure was not without controversy, as he was forced to recuse himself from leading an investigation into the 'Partygate' scandal following allegations his office had held a Christmas event during lockdown. Lord Case was not one of those fined over the episode. Appointed by Boris Johnson, he held the post under the subsequent administrations of Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer. He was succeeded by Sir Chris Wormald.
