AIVD publishes Christmas puzzle of 2018

The AIVD has published the 2018 edition of its infamous Christmas puzzle. The puzzle contains 26 problems of the hors catégorie of some difficulty. Answers can be sent to aivdkerstpuzzel2018@minbzk.nl until 15 January 2019 23:59 hrs.

Puzzlers can rack their brains with the 2018 Christmas Puzzle, including tasks where they can fill in words in a sudoku, find missing animals and find names in illustrations. The AIVD advises taking on the challenge with several people, but those who participate for the win must not make their group larger than four.

The service also asks participants not to spoil answers, nor to give hints: “To counteract this for the most difficult questions, we each assign two extra points to the four sub-questions that have been solved the least often and to the four subsequent sub-questions each an extra point.”

The Christmas puzzle is now a true tradition. The questions were devised by the National Bureau for Connection Security of the AIVD. Originally, the statements were mainly intended for employees, but since 2011, the intelligence service has been publishing them publicly on its site.