(CNN) -- Calling all code-breakers, hackers, and would-be-James Bonds: Britain's eavesdropping agency is looking for recruits.
The Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, has posted a cryptography puzzle online, and is offering a job application to anyone who cracks it.
The puzzle is a perplexing grid of 160 combinations of numbers and letters, posted at www.canyoucrackit.co.uk.
The deadline for contestants is December 12. So far, the agency says, more than 50 people have succeeded in cracking the code.
"I think it's a great idea," said former CIA officer Mark Stout, a code-breaking expert who is now at the International Spy Museum in Washington.
Anyone who correctly solves the puzzle is redirected to a job listing posted online by the British agency. (Actually, the listing is also publicly available to anyone, at www.gchq-careers.co.uk/cyber-jobs.)
The position: Cyber Security Specialist, starting at £25,000 (about $39,000.)
The work: defending critical national infrastructure by detecting and defending against hacking attacks.
Among the qualifications listed: "You need to be good at problem-solving."
A GCHQ spokesman says the purpose of the contest is to draw in people who are not usually attracted to advertising, as well as non-traditional applicants, such as people who are self-taught. The agency is using Twitter and Facebook to spread the word, and in the past has even advertised in video games.
Marc Maiffret, a former hacker who founded the cybersecurity company e-Eye, says even though advanced hackers might find such a contest cheesy or gimmicky, it could attract some people who otherwise wouldn't have pictured themselves working for the government.
"The main central theme through hackers I've ever known," he said, "is wanting to always question things. And I think that's where you find that the hacking-type culture could be at odds with the government."
But, he says, even the stereotypical hacker in the movies -- "the hackers with the colored hair and piercings -- you actually will find those folks within the government these days."
Still, the agency says lawbreakers need not apply.
"Anyone applying who has hacked illegally will not be eligible to continue in the recruitment process," the GCHQ spokesman said.
Instead, Maiffret says, renegade hackers might turn the puzzle into a hacking challenge, rather than a code-breaking challenge.
"The thing that I would have found funny or interesting as a teenage hacker," he said, "would have been to hack the actual server that's hosting this challenge, and actually change the challenge, to have some funny message or some other thing."
But when it comes to serious applicants, government spy agencies need cryptologists now more than ever, according to Stout -- particularly in an increasingly digital and globalized world that faces growing threats from terrorism and cyberattacks.
"Code-breaking -- 'signals intelligence,' as we call it -- can be tremendously valuable," he said, "because it's one of the rare forms of intelligence that if done properly, if you can get access to the right things, will give you the enemy's intention-- what are they really thinking."
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