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Kryptos

Coordinates: 38°57′08″N 77°08′45″W / 38.95227°N 77.14573°W / 38.95227; -77.14573
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This article is about the sculpture. For other uses, see Kryptos (disambiguation).

Kryptos
ArtistJim Sanborn
Year1990
Dimensions11–12 feet × 20 feet
LocationGeorge Bush Center for Intelligence, Langley, Virginia
Coordinates38°57′08″N 77°08′45″W / 38.95227°N 77.14573°W / 38.95227; -77.14573

Kryptos is a distributed sculpture by the American artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters, the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.[1] Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about the meaning of the four encrypted messages it bears. Of these four messages, the first three have been solved, while the fourth message remains one of the most famous unsolved codes in the world. The sculpture continues to be of interest to cryptanalysts, both amateur and professional, who are attempting to decipher the fourth passage. The artist has so far given four clues to this passage.

Description

Close-up view of part of the text

The main part of the sculpture is located in the northwest corner of the New Headquarters Building courtyard, outside of the Agency's cafeteria. The sculpture comprises four large copper plates with other elements consisting of water, wood, plants, red and green granite, white quartz, and petrified wood. The most prominent feature is a large vertical S-shaped copper screen resembling a scroll or a piece of paper emerging from a computer printer, half of which consists of encrypted text. The characters are all found within the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, along with question marks, and are cut out of the copper plates. The main sculpture contains four separate enigmatic messages, three of which have been deciphered.[2]

In addition to the main part of the sculpture, Jim Sanborn also placed other pieces of art on the CIA grounds, such as several large granite slabs with sandwiched copper sheets outside the entrance to the New Headquarters Building. Several morse code messages are found on these copper sheets, and one of the stone slabs has an engraving of a compass rose pointing to a lodestone. Other elements of Sanborn's installation include a landscaped garden area, a fish pond with opposing wooden benches, a reflecting pool, and other pieces of stone, including a triangle-shaped black stone slab.[1] The stonework in the courtyard and the entrance is intended to be part of the landscaping scheme.

The Morse code to the ciphers' increasing "complexity" is intended to be as if it "were a fossil".[3]

The name Kryptos comes from the ancient Greek word for "hidden", and the theme of the sculpture is "intelligence gathering".

The cost of the sculpture in 1988 was US$250,000 (worth ~US$660,000 in 2024).[4]

Encrypted messages

The ciphertext on the left-hand side of the sculpture (as seen from the courtyard) of the main sculpture contains 869 characters in total: 865 letters and 4 question marks. In April 2006, Sanborn released information stating that a letter was omitted from this side of Kryptos "for aesthetic reasons, to keep the sculpture visually balanced".[5] There are also three misspelled words in the plaintext of the deciphered first three passages, which Sanborn has said was intentional,[5] and three letters ("YAR") near the beginning of the bottom half of the left side are the only characters on the sculpture in superscript.

The right-hand side of the sculpture comprises a keyed Vigenère encryption tableau, consisting of 867 letters. One of the lines of the Vigenère tableau has an extra character (L). Bauer, Link, and Molle suggest that this may be a reference to the Hill cipher as an encryption method for the fourth passage of the sculpture.[6] However, Sanborn omitted the extra letter from the small Kryptos models that he sold.

The encryptions that were ascribed
Left side, as seen from the courtyard[a] Right side, as seen from the courtyard 
EMUFPHZLRFAXYUSDJKZLDKRNSHGNFIVJ
YQTQUXQBQVYUVLLTREVJYQTMKYRDMFD
VFPJUDEEHZWETZYVGWHKKQETGFQJNCE
GGWHKK?DQMCPFQZDQMMIAGPFXHQRLG
TIMVMZJANQLVKQEDAGDVFRPJUNGEUNA
QZGZLECGYUXUEENJTBJLBQCRTBJDFHRR
YIZETKZEMVDUFKSJHKFWHKUWQLSZFTI
HHDDDUVH?DWKBFUFPWNTDFIYCUQZERE
EVLDKFEZMOQQJLTTUGSYQPFEUNLAVIDX
FLGGTEZ?FKZBSFDQVGOGIPUFXHHDRKF
FHQNTGPUAECNUVPDJMQCLQUMUNEDFQ
ELZZVRRGKFFVOEEXBDMVPNFQXEZLGRE
DNQFMPNZGLFLPMRJQYALMGNUVPDXVKP
DQUMEBEDMHDAFMJGZNUPLGEWJLLAETG
ENDYAHROHNLSRHEOCPTEOIBIDYSHNAIA
CHTNREYULDSLLSLLNOHSNOSMRWXMNE
TPRNGATIHNRARPESLNNELEBLPIIACAE
WMTWNDITEENRAHCTENEUDRETNHAEOE
TFOLSEDTIWENHAEIOYTEYQHEENCTAYCR
EIFTBRSPAMHHEWENATAMATEGYEERLB
TEEFOASFIOTUETUAEOTOARMAEERTNRTI
BSEDDNIAAHTTMSTEWPIEROAGRIEWFEB
AECTDDHILCEIHSITEGOEAOSDDRYDLORIT
RKLMLEHAGTDHARDPNEOHMGFMFEUHE
ECDMRIPFEIMEHNLSSTTRTVDOHW?OBKR
UOXOGHULBSOLIFBBWFLRVQQPRNGKSSO
TWTQSJQSSEKZZWATJKLUDIAWINFBNYP
VTTMZFPKWGDKZXTJCDIGKUHUAUEKCAR
 
 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCD
AKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYP
BRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPT
CYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTO
DPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOS
ETOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSA
FOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSAB
GSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABC
HABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCD
IBCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDE
JCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEF
KDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFG
LEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGH
MFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHI
NGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJL
OHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJL
PIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLM
QJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMN
RLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQ
SMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQU
TNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUV
UQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVW
VUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWX
WVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZ
XWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZK
YXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKR
ZZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRY
 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCD

Sanborn worked with a retiring CIA employee named Edward Scheidt to come up with the cryptographic systems used on the sculpture.[7]

Sanborn has revealed that the sculpture contains a riddle within a riddle, which will be solvable only after the four encrypted passages have been deciphered.[7] He has given conflicting information about the sculpture's answer, saying at one time that he gave the complete solution to the then-CIA director William Webster during the dedication ceremony; but later, he also said that he had not given Webster the entire solution. He did, however, confirm that a passage of the plaintext of the second message reads, "Who knows the exact location? Only WW."

Sanborn also confirmed that should he die before the entire sculpture is deciphered, someone should be able to confirm the solution.[8] In 2020, Sanborn stated that he planned to put the secret to the solution up for auction once he died.[9]

Solvers

The first person to announce publicly that he had solved the first three passages was Jim Gillogly, a computer scientist from southern California, who deciphered these passages using a computer, and revealed his solutions in 1999.[10] After Gillogly's announcement, the CIA revealed that their analyst David Stein had solved the same passages in 1998 using pencil and paper techniques, although at the time of his solution the information was only disseminated within the intelligence community.[11][12] No public announcement was made until July 1999,[13][14] although in November 1998 it was revealed that "a CIA analyst working on his own time [had] solved the lion's share of it".[15]

The NSA claimed that some of their employees had solved the same three passages but would not reveal names or dates until March 2000, when it was learned that an NSA team led by Ken Miller, along with Dennis McDaniels and two other unnamed individuals, had solved passages 1–3 in late 1992.[16] In 2013, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Elonka Dunin, the NSA released documents that show these attempts to solve the Kryptos puzzle in 1992, following a challenge by Bill Studeman, then Deputy Director of the CIA. The documents show that by June 1993, a small group of NSA cryptanalysts had succeeded in solving the first three passages of the sculpture.[17][18]

All of the previous attempts to solve Kryptos had found that passage 2 ended with "WESTIDBYROWS". However, in 2005, Dr Nicole Friedrich, a logician from Vancouver, Canada, determined that another possible plaintext was "WESTXLAYERTWO".[19] Dr. Friedrich solved the ending to section K2 from a clue that became apparent after she had determined a running cipher of K4 that resulted in an incomplete but partially legible K4 plaintext, involving text such as "XPIST", "REALIZE", "AYD EQ HR", and others, but the find that instigated her discovery of K2 plaintext was the clue text "WESTX".[how?] On April 19, 2006, Sanborn contacted an online community dedicated to the Kryptos puzzle to inform them that he made an error in the sculpture by omitting an S in the ciphertext (an X in the plaintext), and he confirmed that the last passage of the plaintext was "WESTXLAYERTWO", and not "WESTIDBYROWS".[20]

Solutions

The following are the decryptions of passages 1–3 of the sculpture.[21] The texts were added with blank spaces, but misspellings present in the text are included verbatim.

Morse code

The translations of the International Morse code (sometimes called K0) that are ascribed to the copper slabs when read facing the south:[22][b]

E E VIRTUALLY E | E E E E E E INVISIBLE

DIGETAL E E E | INTERPRETATIT

E E SHADOW E E | FORCES E E E E E

LUCID E E E | MEMORY E

T IS YOUR | POSITION E

SOS

RQ

Solution of passage 1

  • Method: Vigenère
  • Keywords: "Kryptos" and "palimpsest"

    BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION

    Iqlusion was an intentional misspelling of illusion.[17][9]

Solution of passage 2

  • Method: Vigenère
  • Keywords: "Kryptos" and "abscissa"

    IT WAS TOTALLY INVISIBLE HOWS THAT POSSIBLE ? THEY USED THE EARTHS MAGNETIC FIELD X THE INFORMATION WAS GATHERED AND TRANSMITTED UNDERGRUUND TO AN UNKNOWN LOCATION X DOES LANGLEY KNOW ABOUT THIS ? THEY SHOULD ITS BURIED OUT THERE SOMEWHERE X WHO KNOWS THE EXACT LOCATION ? ONLY WW THIS WAS HIS LAST MESSAGE X THIRTY EIGHT DEGREES FIFTY SEVEN MINUTES SIX POINT FIVE SECONDS NORTH SEVENTY SEVEN DEGREES EIGHT MINUTES FORTY FOUR SECONDS WEST X LAYER TWO

    The coordinates mentioned in the plaintext, 38°57′6.5″N 77°8′44″W / 38.951806°N 77.14556°W / 38.951806; -77.14556, have been interpreted using a modern Geodetic datum as indicating a point that is approximately 174 feet (53 meters) southeast of the sculpture.[2]

Solution of passage 3

  • Method: Transposition

    SLOWLY DESPARATLY SLOWLY THE REMAINS OF PASSAGE DEBRIS THAT ENCUMBERED THE LOWER PART OF THE DOORWAY WAS REMOVED WITH TREMBLING HANDS I MADE A TINY BREACH IN THE UPPER LEFT HAND CORNER AND THEN WIDENING THE HOLE A LITTLE I INSERTED THE CANDLE AND PEERED IN THE HOT AIR ESCAPING FROM THE CHAMBER CAUSED THE FLAME TO FLICKER BUT PRESENTLY DETAILS OF THE ROOM WITHIN EMERGED FROM THE MIST X CAN YOU SEE ANYTHING Q ?

    This is a paraphrased quotation from Howard Carter's account of the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun on November 26, 1922, as described in his 1923 book The Tomb of Tutankhamun. The question with which it ends is asked by Lord Carnarvon, to which Carter (in the book) replied "wonderful things". Field notes from the expedition, however, show his reply as, "Yes, it is wonderful".[23]

Solution of passage 4

  • Method: Playfair K4

LITTLE MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB ITS FLEECE WAS WHITE AS SNOW AND EVERYWHERE THAT MARY WENT THE LAMB WAS SURE TO GO

Clues given for passage 4

The Mengenlehreuhr (Berlin Clock) may be the "Berlin Clock" the encrypted message references.

When commenting in 2006 about his error in passage 2, Sanborn said that the answers to the first three passages contain clues to the fourth passage.[5] In November 2010, Sanborn released a clue, publicly stating that "NYPVTT", the 64th–⁠69th letters in passage 4, become "BERLIN" after decryption.[24][25]

Sanborn gave The New York Times another clue in November 2014: the letters "MZFPK", the 70th–⁠74th letters in passage 4, become "CLOCK" after decryption.[26] The 74th letter is K in both the plaintext and ciphertext, meaning that it is possible for a character to encrypt to itself. Sanborn further stated that in order to solve passage 4, "You'd better delve into that particular clock", but added, "There are several really interesting clocks in Berlin."[27] The particular clock in question is presumably the Berlin Clock, although the Alexanderplatz World Clock and Clock of Flowing Time are other candidates.

In an article published on January 29, 2020, by The New York Times, Sanborn gave another clue: at positions 26–34, ciphertext "QQPRNGKSS" is the word "NORTHEAST".[9]

In August 2020, Sanborn revealed that the four letters in positions 22–25, ciphertext "FLRV", in the plaintext are "EAST". Sanborn commented that he "released this layout to several people as early as April".[28] The first person known to have shared this hint more widely was Sukhwant Singh.

After producing Kryptos, Sanborn's first cryptographic sculpture, he went on to make several other sculptures with codes, including an "Untitled Kryptos Piece" and Cyrillic Projector, which contain encrypted Russian Cyrillic text that includes an extract from a classified KGB document. The cipher on one side of Sanborn's 1997 sculpture Antipodes repeats part of the text from Kryptos with slight differences.

The dust jacket of the US version of Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code contains two references to Kryptos—one on the back cover (coordinates printed light red on dark red, vertically next to the blurbs) is a reference to the coordinates mentioned in the plaintext of passage 2, except the degree digit is off by one. When Brown and his publisher were asked about this, they both gave the same reply: "The discrepancy is intentional". The coordinates were part of the first clue of the second The Da Vinci Code WebQuests, the first answer being Kryptos. The other reference is hidden in the brown "tear" artwork—the upside-down text "Only WW knows" is another reference to the second message on Kryptos.[4][29] Kryptos was also featured in another of Dan Brown's novels, The Lost Symbol (2009).[2]

A small version of Kryptos appears in the season 5 episode of Alias "S.O.S.". In it, Marshall Flinkman says he has cracked the code just by looking at it during a tour visit to the CIA office. The solution he describes sounds like the solution to the first two parts.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The left-side encryptions are often divided into four sections: K1, K2, K3 and K4.
  2. ^ Sources might write "INTERPRETATIT" as "INTERPRETATIU" or "INTERPRETATIO[N]" due to the presumed dash that is consistent with O in International Morse code. (anonymous). "Kryptos – Beyond K4". Photos by Jim Gillgoly. Morse Code. Archived from the original on December 26, 2015. Retrieved May 6, 2024. And the E after "POSITION" is sometimes not present. Wilson. "Morse Code" (TXT). Contributions by Eric Hall. Archived from the original on May 13, 2023.

References

  1. ^ a b "Kryptos sculpture". Central Intelligence Agency. Intellipedia. July 18, 2017. Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room. Archived from the original on January 7, 2024. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c Burstein, Daniel; Keijzer, Arne de (December 22, 2009). Secrets of The Lost Symbol. William Morrow. ISBN 978-0061964954.
  3. ^ Sanborn, Jim (December 15, 1989). "Project Explanation" (PDF). American Cryptogram Association (a courtesy message directed to "Agency Employers"). LVII: 8. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 27, 2016. This code, [...] begins as International Morse and increases in complexity as you move through the piece at the entrance and into the courtyard. Its placement in a geologic context reinforces the text's 'hiddenness' as if it were a fossil or an image frozen in time.
  4. ^ a b "FAQ About Kryptos". elonka.com. Elonka.com. December 14, 2003. Q: How much did Kryptos cost?. Archived from the original on April 21, 2024. Retrieved November 12, 2011.
  5. ^ a b c Zetter, Kim (April 20, 2006). "Typo Confounds Kryptos Sleuths". Wired. Archived from the original on March 4, 2024.
  6. ^ Bauer, Craig; Link, Gregory; Molle, Dante (April 27, 2016). "James Sanborn's Kryptos and the matrix encryption conjecture". Cryptologia. 40 (6): 548. doi:10.1080/01611194.2016.1141556. ISSN 0161-1194.
  7. ^ a b Champagne, Christine; Beebe, Drew (July 25, 2020). "This sculpture at CIA headquarters holds one of the world's most famous unsolved mysteries". edition.cnn.com. CNN. Archived from the original on March 14, 2024. Retrieved July 25, 2020.
  8. ^ Zetter, Kim (January 20, 2005). "Questions for Kryptos' Creator". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on April 24, 2023. Retrieved May 5, 2024.
  9. ^ a b c Schwartz, John; Corum, Jonathan (January 29, 2020). "This Sculpture Holds a Decades-Old C.I.A. Mystery. And Now, Another Clue". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 4, 2024.
  10. ^ Markoff, John (June 16, 1999). "CIA's Artistic Enigma Reveals All but Final Clues". New York Times. Archived from the original on October 20, 2023. Retrieved December 11, 2011.
  11. ^ Stein, David D. (1999). "The Puzzle at CIA Headquarters: Cracking the Courtyard Crypto" (PDF). Studies in Intelligence. 43 (1).
  12. ^ Stein, David D. (July 23, 2018). "Cracking the Courtyard Crypto". CIA. Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room. Archived from the original on January 7, 2024. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
  13. ^ Schwartz, John (July 19, 1999). "Cracking the Code of a CIA Sculpture". Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 16, 2016. Retrieved December 11, 2011.
  14. ^ Zetter, Kim (June 5, 2013). "CIA Releases Analyst's Fascinating Tale of Cracking the Kryptos Sculpture". Wired. Wired.com. Archived from the original on January 17, 2024. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
  15. ^ Bessonette, Colin (November 16, 1998). "Q&A on the News". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. p. A2. A CIA analyst working on his own time has solved the lion's share of it, but it hasn't been completely decoded, CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield told Q&A. He said the best way to describe the sculpture is to say it incorporates natural building materials native to America and includes an encoded copper screen. When and if someone completely solves the message, a decision will be made about releasing it to the public, "but we're not at that point yet," Mansfield said.
  16. ^ Bowman, Tom (March 17, 2000). "Unlocking the secret of 'Kryptos'". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on February 9, 2014. Retrieved December 11, 2011.
  17. ^ a b Zetter, Kim (July 10, 2013). "Documents Reveal How the NSA Cracked the Kryptos Sculpture Years Before the CIA". Wired. Archived from the original on May 10, 2023. Retrieved April 10, 2020.
  18. ^ Sadowski, Jathan (July 11, 2013). "NSA Cracked Kryptos Before the CIA. What Other Mysteries Has It Solved?". Slate. Archived from the original on February 4, 2024.
  19. ^ "From a radio interview on BellCoreRadio, season 1, episode 32, Barcode Brothers". SarenaSix. Quoted from Elonka Dunin. October 11, 2005. Archived from the original on October 19, 2015. Retrieved November 12, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  20. ^ Zetter, Kim (November 20, 2014). "Finally, a New Clue to Solve the CIA's Mysterious Kryptos Sculpture". Wired. Archived from the original on January 6, 2015. Retrieved November 25, 2014. in 2006, Sanborn realized he had also made an inadvertent error, a missing "x" that he mistakenly deleted from the end of a line in passage 2, a passage that was already solved.
  21. ^ Lindsly, Corey (June 16, 1999). "fx-discuss: FC: Cypherpunk breaks CIA's crypto code in 1990 statue (fwd)". elonka.com. Archived from the original on September 5, 2023. Retrieved November 12, 2011.
  22. ^ "K0 Solution". The Kryptos Project. Archived from the original on April 19, 2023. Retrieved May 5, 2024.
  23. ^ Malek, Jaromir (May 15, 2006). Hutchison, Sue; Miles, Elizabeth; Magee, Diana; Rawlinson, Kent; Allen, Lindsay; Hobby, Alison; Malek, Jaromir (eds.). "Tutankhamun: Anatomy of an Excavation". ashmolean.org. Designed by Jonathan Moffett. Griffith Institute.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  24. ^ Schwartz, John (November 20, 2010). "Artist releases clue to Kryptos". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 19, 2023. Retrieved November 12, 2011.
  25. ^ (anonymous) (November 22, 2010). "'Kryptos' Sculptor Drops New Clue In 20-Year Mystery". National Public Radio. Archived from the original on February 24, 2024. Retrieved November 12, 2011.
  26. ^ "A New Clue to 'Kryptos'". The New York Times. Photos by Drew Angerer. November 20, 2014. Archived from the original on March 14, 2024. Retrieved November 21, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  27. ^ Schwartz, John (November 20, 2014). "Sculptor Offers Another Clue in 24-Year-Old Mystery at C.I.A.". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 24, 2024. Retrieved November 22, 2014.
  28. ^ Schwartz, John [@@jswatz] (August 24, 2020). "KRYPTOS NEWS: Jim Sanborn, creator of the Kryptos sculpture, quietly released four new plaintext letters to the unsolved potion, K4. EAST, which goes just before the recently released NORTHEAST. Here's my story from January" (Tweet). Archived from the original on March 14, 2024. Retrieved May 5, 2024 – via Twitter.
  29. ^ McKinnon, John D. (May 27, 2005). "CIA sculpture 'kryptos' draws mystery lovers". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on February 17, 2007. Retrieved December 11, 2011.

Books

Journal articles

Conference papers

  • Bean, Richard (2021). Cryptodiagnosis of "Kryptos K4". 4th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt. doi:10.3384/ecp183153.

Articles

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