Cipher Challenge Gallery

... a few pictures that illustrate the
closing phases of the competition.

I met hundreds of people who had taken up the challenge. This photo was taken by Terry Froggatt at a crypto conference in Oxford with cipher challengers from four countries. It was great meeting such people, but I always had to be careful to avoid giving away clues.

Eventually, after 13 months of codebreaking efforts, the Stealth Swedes cracked all ten stages of the Cipher Challenge. The race was over.

  
   I drew up a cheque for the winners.
   I encrypted it, hoping that the bank
   would not cash it, but my plan
   failed.

   This picture appeared in the Daily
   Telegraph, whose science editor
   Roger Highfield wrote an article
   about the end of the competition.

After a week or two, I flew to Stockholm to present the cheque in person to the winners. The Royal Institute of Technology organised a prize ceremony, which included a lecture by me about how I made the Challenge and a lecture by the winners about how they cracked the codes.

There was also a panel discussion with me and the winners, shown here.

   And I suppose this 
   marks the end of the 
   Cipher Challenge.
   This is me revealing
   how I created the
   Challenge, giving 
   away for the first time
   the keys needed to
   crack it.This is clearly
   a very important
   moment, because 
   I am wearing a suit
   and not a cardigan.

   This picture was taken
   by Erik Tjernland.