GCHQ's "Can You Crack It?" website, designed to help recruit talented codebreakers for the British government department, is getting lots of attention from the media and bloggers - but some of that may be unwanted.
A number of bloggers and Twitter users have pointed out that GCHQ appears to have done rather a poor job at locking down the website, making it child's play for anyone to visit the webpage you're only supposed to see if you've successfully cracked the code.
All it takes to find the page is to use the site: command in Google, as the "Can You Crack It?" webmaster seemingly didn't hide the success page from search engines.
Oops!
Of course, none of this means that the code-cracking competition isn't still worth participating in. It was perhaps inevitable - once GCHQ's involvement in the challenge was known - that some would ferret around for chinks in the website's armour.
Behind the scenes - Naked Security and GCHQ's competition
In October, Naked Security was contacted by a marketing agency working on behalf of GCHQ, asking if we would write an article encouraging readers to take part in the code-cracking competition.
We didn't know the agency was working for GCHQ at the time (this was only revealed after we signed a non-disclosure agreement), and ultimately we decided not to proceed as we felt uncomfortable pointing readers to a competition without being allowed to be upfront and open about its intended purpose, and who was behind the unbranded, standalone site.
It just didn't feel very "social media" to keep the reason behind the "Can you crack it?" website and its creators a secret from you, our readers, and so we politely declined to participate.
However, this week it became public knowledge that GCHQ were behind the competition website, with the likes of the BBC and Daily Telegraph writing about it.
So with the non-disclosure agreement null and voice, Naked Security had the green light to describe the competition for our readers.
Thanks to
A number of bloggers and Twitter users have pointed out that GCHQ appears to have done rather a poor job at locking down the website, making it child's play for anyone to visit the webpage you're only supposed to see if you've successfully cracked the code.All it takes to find the page is to use the site: command in Google, as the "Can You Crack It?" webmaster seemingly didn't hide the success page from search engines.
Oops!
Of course, none of this means that the code-cracking competition isn't still worth participating in. It was perhaps inevitable - once GCHQ's involvement in the challenge was known - that some would ferret around for chinks in the website's armour.
Behind the scenes - Naked Security and GCHQ's competition
In October, Naked Security was contacted by a marketing agency working on behalf of GCHQ, asking if we would write an article encouraging readers to take part in the code-cracking competition.
We didn't know the agency was working for GCHQ at the time (this was only revealed after we signed a non-disclosure agreement), and ultimately we decided not to proceed as we felt uncomfortable pointing readers to a competition without being allowed to be upfront and open about its intended purpose, and who was behind the unbranded, standalone site.
It just didn't feel very "social media" to keep the reason behind the "Can you crack it?" website and its creators a secret from you, our readers, and so we politely declined to participate.
However, this week it became public knowledge that GCHQ were behind the competition website, with the likes of the BBC and Daily Telegraph writing about it.
So with the non-disclosure agreement null and voice, Naked Security had the green light to describe the competition for our readers.
Thanks to
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