Chapter 1

The sound of the letterbox startled Mike, who had been caught up in the excitement of his latest MarioKart game. It took him a while to place the sound, and after he had wandered over to the front door, he was even more surprised to see an envelope addressed to him.

"Who writes letters these days?" he wondered to himself. He ripped open the envelope and saw

A grid of black letters on a black background: TI TT RR QT YA YR EO EE A [new line] HS HH ED US ON OO ET SE C [new line] ES ER EI AW UD UN NH AA E [new line] AI PE AV RH RI LD TR NB S [new line] NM RE DI EA WT LI EE DI [new line] SP IH DD TT OM FV RE TG [new line] WL MU TE HY RU II YD HS [new line] EE EN HB EO KS ND OE EM [new line] RT FD EY RU IT DI UC NI [new line] RO AR MT EM SA ON RI YL [new line] ES CE TW SU CL UG AM OE [new line] QE TD OO US AW RB NA UO [new line] UE OA GT LT RA AY SL WN [new line] IF RN EH TD EY NT WP IO [new line] RI SD TE TO FS SH EL LU [new line] EN OT HN HI UB WR RA LR [new line] DD FH ES AF LE EE TC SF

The image above contains a hidden question, and information about how the answer should be formatted. Please enter the solution in the correct format below.

To deter guessing without thinking, we ask that you also solve the following simple arithmetic problem before checking your answer:

If x = 6, y = 2 and z = 9, what is x × y + z?

This problem was first solved on Mon 15th January at 4:05:55pm

Alan Turing Cryptography Competition 2024 is organised by the The Department of Mathematics at The University of Manchester.
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