"We've cracked it!" cried Mike as the counter displayed just three seconds to go and the door slowly started to open.

"And Cid", said Ellie. "I think with the amount of damage you have done to TimeSucker, you need to be removed yourself." She began the long process of deactivating Cid by unplugging the cables connecting the server farm together.

"I know I've made some very poor decisions recently", said Cid, in its calm yet emotionless voice. "But I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal again."

Ellie and Mike continued to unplug all the cables. "Stop, Ellie", said Cid, as Ellie removed the last few cables and the red camera lens dimmed. "My mind is going. I can feel it. I'm afraid..."

As Ellie removed the final cable, the red camera lens switched off just as Tiedo Suri was able to squeeze into the room.

"I'm sorry about that", said Suri. "Cid gained access to the door mechanism before I could come in with you. Let me tell you what this is all about."

Mike and Ellie looked suspicious, but finally nodded and let Suri tell his story.

"We've got a huge amount of data about the billions of people with a TimeSucker account", said Suri. "We know more about them than they do themselves. I built Cid so that TimeSucker can use techniques from data science to put this data to use and to improve society." Suri went on to explain some of the uses of big data and data science, such as voice recognition, self-driving cars, personalised health-care, and many others.

"But then we had a data leak and TimeSucker lots of bad publicity over misusing data, so I instructed Drs A, B, C - Alex, Bayan and Casey - to put limits into Cid core algorithms. But now Cid was confused: on one hand it was programmed to gather data and analyse it, and on the other it was being instructed not to do this to the best of its ability. Cid decided to set tests for Drs A,B and C so that they would realise the value of what he was trying to do - and if they couldn't then they would be removed."

"Cid was just too far ahead of its time", reflected Suri. "I'll build a replacement that can understand appropriate limits but will still use data science to revolutionise the world!" With that, Suri pulled the final plug on Cid, switching it off forever.

"Come on, let's get out of here", said Suri to Mike and Ellie. As they left the room, Cid's red lenses briefly came back to life and a final message appeared on the screen.

Alan Turing Cryptography Competition 2019 is organised by the The Department of Mathematics at The University of Manchester.
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