In 1989, the year the Berlin Wall began to fall, American artist Jim Sanborn was busy working on his Kryptos sculpture, a cryptographic puzzle wrapped in a riddle that he created for the CIA’s headquarters and that has been driving amateur and professional cryptographers mad ever since.
To honor the 25th anniversary of the Wall’s demise and the artist’s 69th birthday this year, Sanborn has decided to reveal a new clue to help solve his iconic and enigmatic artwork. It’s only the second hint he’s released since the sculpture was unveiled in 1990 and may finally help unlock the fourth and final section of the encrypted sculpture, which frustrated sleuths have been struggling to crack for more than two decades.
The 12-foot-high, verdigrised copper, granite and wood sculpture on the grounds of the CIA complex in Langley, Virginia, contains four encrypted messages carved out of the metal, three of which were solved years ago. The fourth is composed of just 97 letters, but its brevity belies its strength. Even the NSA, whose master crackers were the first to decipher other parts of the work, gave up on cracking it long ago. So four years ago, concerned that he might not live to see the mystery of Kryptos resolved, Sanborn released a clue to help things along, revealing that six of the last 97 letters when decrypted spell the word “Berlin”—a revelation that many took to be a reference to the Berlin Wall.
To that clue today, he’s adding the next word in the sequence—“clock”—that may or may not throw a wrench in this theory. Now the Kryptos sleuths just have to unscramble the remaining 86 characters to find out.
(Score: 4, Informative) by dublet on Friday November 21 2014, @03:11PM
The ciphertext on one half of the main sculpture contains 869 characters in total—865 letters and 4 question marks. In April 2006, however, Sanborn released information stating that a letter was omitted on the main half of Kryptos "for aesthetic reasons, to keep the sculpture visually balanced."[3] There are also a few incorrect letters in the ciphertext which Sanborn has said were intentional, and a few letters near the beginning of the bottom half have been displaced from their normal positions, apparently intentionally. The other half of the sculpture comprises a keyed Vigenère encryption tableau, consisting of 867 letters. One of the lines of the tableau is one character too long, which Sanborn has indicated was accidental.[citation needed]
EMUFPHZLRFAXYUSDJKZLDKRNSHGNFIVJ
YQTQUXQBQVYUVLLTREVJYQTMKYRDMFD
VFPJUDEEHZWETZYVGWHKKQETGFQJNCE
GGWHKK?DQMCPFQZDQMMIAGPFXHQRLG
TIMVMZJANQLVKQEDAGDVFRPJUNGEUNA
QZGZLECGYUXUEENJTBJLBQCRTBJDFHRR
YIZETKZEMVDUFKSJHKFWHKUWQLSZFTI
HHDDDUVH?DWKBFUFPWNTDFIYCUQZERE
EVLDKFEZMOQQJLTTUGSYQPFEUNLAVIDX
FLGGTEZ?FKZBSFDQVGOGIPUFXHHDRKF
FHQNTGPUAECNUVPDJMQCLQUMUNEDFQ
ELZZVRRGKFFVOEEXBDMVPNFQXEZLGRE
DNQFMPNZGLFLPMRJQYALMGNUVPDXVKP
DQUMEBEDMHDAFMJGZNUPLGEWJLLAETG
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCD
AKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYP
BRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPT
CYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTO
DPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOS
ETOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSA
FOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSAB
GSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABC
HABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCD
IBCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDE
JCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEF
KDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFG
LEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGH
MFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHI
ENDYAHROHNLSRHEOCPTEOIBIDYSHNAIA
CHTNREYULDSLLSLLNOHSNOSMRWXMNE
TPRNGATIHNRARPESLNNELEBLPIIACAE
WMTWNDITEENRAHCTENEUDRETNHAEOE
TFOLSEDTIWENHAEIOYTEYQHEENCTAYCR
EIFTBRSPAMHHEWENATAMATEGYEERLB
TEEFOASFIOTUETUAEOTOARMAEERTNRTI
BSEDDNIAAHTTMSTEWPIEROAGRIEWFEB
AECTDDHILCEIHSITEGOEAOSDDRYDLORIT
RKLMLEHAGTDHARDPNEOHMGFMFEUHE
ECDMRIPFEIMEHNLSSTTRTVDOHW?OBKR
UOXOGHULBSOLIFBBWFLRVQQPRNGKSSO
TWTQSJQSSEKZZWATJKLUDIAWINFBNYP
VTTMZFPKWGDKZXTJCDIGKUHUAUEKCAR
NGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJL
OHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJL
PIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLM
QJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMN
RLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQ
SMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQU
TNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUV
UQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVW
VUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWX
WVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZ
XWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZK
YXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKR
ZZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRY
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCD
Solution of passage 1
Keywords: Kryptos, Palimpsest
BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION
Solution of passage 2
Keywords: Kryptos, 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
On April 19, 2006, Sanborn contacted an online community dedicated to the Kryptos puzzle to inform them that the accepted solution to part 2 was wrong. He said that he made an error in the sculpture by omitting an "X" used to indicate a break for aesthetic reasons, and that the decrypted text which ended "...FOUR SECONDS WEST ID BY ROWS" should actually be "...FOUR SECONDS WEST X LAYER TWO".[14]
Note: The coordinates mentioned in the plaintext: 38°57′6.5″N 77°8′44″W. The point is about 150 feet southeast of the sculpture itself.[1]
Solution of passage 3
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 that posed by Lord Carnarvon, to which Carter (in the book) famously replied "wonderful things". In the actual November 26, 1922 field notes, his reply was, "Yes, it is wonderful."[15]
Solution of passage 4
Part 4 remains unsolved, though there was an active Yahoo! Group[16] (formed in 2003) that coordinated the work of over 2000 members toward decryption of the code.
When commenting in 2006 about his error in section 2, Sanborn said that the answers to the first sections contain clues to the last section.[17] In November 2010, Sanborn released another clue: Letters 64-69 NYPVTT in part 4 encode the text BERLIN.[18][19] Sanborn gave the New York Times a second clue in November 2014: Letters 70-74 in part 4, which read MZFPK, will be CLOCK when decoded.[20]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Friday November 21 2014, @03:38PM
The phrase "a bit too much noise and not a lot of signal" ought to be on a banner at the Wired web site under their logo.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 1) by maxim on Friday November 21 2014, @04:04PM
What do you expect? Wires do have noise to signal ratio and its not that high as we would expect :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 21 2014, @10:03PM
Their noise-to-signal ratio is through the roof.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 22 2014, @01:31AM
A woman I was fucking got me a Wired mag subscription for a year, so that it would continue to remind me of her long after I kicked her to the curb, and wired ain't what it used to be even a couple years ago.
It's one decent story buried in mostly ads and obvious product placement masquerading as articles. "This Global brand knife is just what you need for cutting sashimi. This Brand X cast-iron skillet is what you need being a fucking hipster," etc.
I read the paper mag sporadically throughout the years and it seems that only a couple years ago it was half-decent, with lengthy articles on technology and the Arab Spring, for example. Now, relegating it to being your toilet mag would be a dishonor to both your toilet and your shits.
What to use Wired magazine for now? Oh, I don't know. Birdcage liner, maybe shred it and use it as packaging filler.
(Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Friday November 21 2014, @03:45PM
So, perhaps it has something to do with the Berlin-Uhr [wikipedia.org]? It's a clock showing the time with a number system to the base 5. It was my first programming project in c# some years ago...
(Score: 2) by tynin on Friday November 21 2014, @04:16PM
It made me think of the "clock" method they used to decrypt German Enigma ciphers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 21 2014, @04:32PM
> but its brevity belies its strength.
That's meaningless at best, and just plain wrong at worst. length can reveal the weakness of a weak cypher. brevity can never tell you anything about the strength or weakness of a cypher.
How strong is the cypher used to encrypt the following common 4-letter word: RJDM
(Score: 1) by cellocgw on Friday November 21 2014, @10:20PM
How strong is the cypher used to encrypt the following common 4-letter word: RJDM
You misspelled RTFM
Physicist, cellist, former OTTer (1190) resume: https://app.box.com/witthoftresume
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 21 2014, @04:58PM
Fuck the NSA
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 21 2014, @08:28PM
This sculpture is just a PR tool for the CIA and their buddies. It draws focus from their actions in the world and gives the press and particularly technically inclined people a shiny bauble to play with. It is like the CIA twitter account [twitter.com] for people who would like to think they are too smart for twitter. I used to think it was cool, now I really don't give a damn what secret decoder ring will reveal an ultimately meaningless message.