Kryptos
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''Kryptos'' is a
sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
by the
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
artist
Jim Sanborn Jim or JIM may refer to: * Jim (given name), a given name * Jim, a diminutive form of the given name James * Jim, a short form of the given name Jimmy * OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism * ''Jim'' (comics), a series by Jim Woodring * ''Ji ...
located on the grounds of the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA) in
Langley, Virginia Langley is an unincorporated community in the census-designated place of McLean in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Langley is often used as a metonym for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as it is home to its headquarters, the Geor ...
. Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about the meaning of the four
encrypted In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decip ...
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
cryptanalyst Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic sec ...
s, both amateur and professional, who are attempting to decipher the fourth passage. The artist has so far given four clues to this passage.


Description

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 Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
plates with other elements consisting of water, wood, plants, red and green
granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
, white
quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
, and
petrified wood Petrified wood, also known as petrified tree (from Ancient Greek meaning 'rock' or 'stone'; literally 'wood turned into stone'), is the name given to a special type of ''fossilized wood'', the fossilized remains of terrestrial vegetation. ''P ...
. 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 The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
, 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. In addition to the main part of the sculpture,
Jim Sanborn Jim or JIM may refer to: * Jim (given name), a given name * Jim, a diminutive form of the given name James * Jim, a short form of the given name Jimmy * OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism * ''Jim'' (comics), a series by Jim Woodring * ''Ji ...
also placed other pieces of art at the CIA grounds, such as several large granite slabs with sandwiched copper sheets outside the entrance to the New Headquarters Building. Several
morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...
messages are found on these copper sheets, and one of the stone slabs has an engraving of a
compass rose A compass rose, sometimes called a wind rose, rose of the winds or compass star, is a figure on a compass, map, nautical chart, or monument used to display the orientation of the cardinal directions (north, east, south, and west) and their int ...
pointing to a
lodestone Lodestones are naturally magnetized pieces of the mineral magnetite. They are naturally occurring magnets, which can attract iron. The property of magnetism was first discovered in antiquity through lodestones. Pieces of lodestone, suspen ...
. Other elements of Sanborn's installation include a landscaped garden area, a fish pond with opposing wooden benches, a
reflecting pool A reflecting pool, also called a reflection pool, is a water feature found in gardens, parks, and memorial sites. It usually consists of a shallow pool of water, undisturbed by fountain jets, for a reflective surface. Design Reflecting pools are ...
, and other pieces of stone including a triangle-shaped black stone slab. The name ''Kryptos'' comes from the ancient
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
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 $501,000 in 2016).


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 (spacing is important). In April 2006, however, Sanborn released information stating that a letter was omitted from this side of ''Kryptos'' "for aesthetic reasons, to keep the sculpture visually balanced".Zetter, Kim
"Typo Confounds Kryptos Sleuths" ''Wired'' April 20, 2006
/ref> There are also three misspelled words in the plaintext of the deciphered first three passages, which Sanborn has said was intentional, and three letters (YAR) near the beginning of the bottom half of the left side are the only characters on the sculpture in
superscript A subscript or superscript is a character (such as a number or letter) that is set slightly below or above the normal line of type, respectively. It is usually smaller than the rest of the text. Subscripts appear at or below the baseline, whil ...
. 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 In classical cryptography, the Hill cipher is a polygraphic substitution cipher based on linear algebra. Invented by Lester S. Hill in 1929, it was the first polygraphic cipher in which it was practical (though barely) to operate on more than t ...
as an encryption method for the fourth passage of the sculpture. However, Sanborn omitted the extra letter from small Kryptos models that he sold. Sanborn worked with a retiring CIA employee named
Ed Scheidt Edward Michael Scheidt is a retired Chairman of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Cryptographic Center and the designer of the cryptographic systems used in the '' Kryptos'' sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Early life Scheid ...
, Chairman of the CIA Office of Communications, to come up with the cryptographic systems used on the sculpture. 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. 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 becomes deciphered, there will be someone able to confirm the solution. In 2020, Sanborn stated that he planned to put the secret to the solution up for auction once he dies.


Solvers

The first person to announce publicly that he had solved the first three passages was
Jim Gillogly James J. Gillogly (born 5 March 1946) is an American computer scientist and cryptographer. Biography Early life His interest in cryptography stems from his boyhood, as did his interest in mathematics. By junior high he was inventing his own ciphe ...
, a
computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...
from southern
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, who deciphered these passages using a computer, and revealed his solutions in 1999. 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. No public announcement was made until July 1999, although in November 1998 it was revealed that "a CIA analyst working on his own time adsolved the lion's share of it". The
NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
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. In 2013, in response to a
Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...
request by
Elonka Dunin Elonka Dunin (; born December 29, 1958) is an American video game developer and cryptologist. Dunin worked at Simutronics Corp. in St. Louis, Missouri from 1990–2014, and in 2015 was Senior Producer at Black Gate Games in Nashville, Tennes ...
, 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. The above attempts to solve ''Kryptos'' all had found that passage 2 ended with WESTIDBYROWS. However, in 2005, Dr Nicole Friedrich, a
logician Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
from
Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, Canada, determined that another possible plaintext was: WESTPLAYERTWO. 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 WESTX. On April 19, 2006, Sanborn contacted an online community dedicated to the ''Kryptos'' puzzle to inform them that what was once the accepted solution to passage 2 was incorrect. Sanborn said 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.


Solutions

The following are the solutions of passages 1–3 of the sculpture. Misspellings present in the text are included verbatim.


Solution of passage 1

Method: Vigenère Keywords: Kryptos,
Palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused for another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin an ...
BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION ''Iqlusion'' was an intentional misspelling of ''illusion''.


Solution of passage 2

Method: Vigenère Keywords: Kryptos,
Abscissa In common usage, the abscissa refers to the (''x'') coordinate and the ordinate refers to the (''y'') coordinate of a standard two-dimensional graph. The distance of a point from the y-axis, scaled with the x-axis, is called abscissa or x coo ...
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, , have been interpreted using a modern
Geodetic datum A geodetic datum or geodetic system (also: geodetic reference datum, geodetic reference system, or geodetic reference frame) is a global datum reference or reference frame for precisely representing the position of locations on Earth or other plan ...
as indicating a point that is approximately 174 feet (53 meters) southeast of the sculpture.


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 Howard Carter (9 May 18742 March 1939) was a British archaeologist and Egyptologist who discovered the intact tomb of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922, the best-preserved pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the K ...
's account of the opening of the
tomb A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a :wikt:repository, repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be ...
of
Tutankhamun Tutankhamun (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...
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 Earl of Carnarvon is a title that has been created three times in British history. The current holder is George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon. The town and county in Wales to which the title refers are historically spelled ''Caernarfon,'' havi ...
, to which Carter (in the book) famously replied "wonderful things". In the November 26, 1922, field notes, however, his reply was, "Yes, it is wonderful".


Clues given for passage 4

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. In November 2010, Sanborn released a clue, publicly stating that "NYPVTT", the 64th–⁠69th letters in passage four, become "BERLIN" after decryption. Sanborn gave ''The New York Times'' another clue in November 2014: the letters "MZFPK", the 70th–⁠74th letters in passage four, become "CLOCK" after decryption. The 74th letter is K in both the plaintext and ciphertext, meaning that it is possible for a character to encrypt to itself. This means it does not have the weakness, where a character could never be encrypted as itself, that was known to be inherent in the German Enigma machine. 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." The particular clock in question is presumably the Berlin Clock, although the Alexanderplatz World Clock and
Clock of Flowing Time The Clock of Flowing Time (german: Uhr der fließenden Zeit) is a 13 meter high water clock extending over three floors in the Berlin Europa-Center. The clock was designed by the French artist Bernard Gitton and set up in 1982. The water clock ...
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". 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". The first person known to have shared this hint more widely was Sukhwant Singh. There are some suggestions about the relationship between K4 and the Enigma machine. The initial German Patent of the Enigma machine is DE385682 (19 May 1922). The number 385682 closely resembles the coordinates ", LAYER 2" shown in the K2 plain text, and the scene depicted in the K3 plain text (Opening Tutankhamun's Tomb by Howard Carter) occurred in the same year 1922.


Related sculptures

''Kryptos'' was the first cryptographic sculpture made by Sanborn. After producing ''Kryptos'' he went on to make several other sculptures with codes and other types of writing, including one entitled ''
Antipodes In geography, the antipode () of any spot on Earth is the point on Earth's surface diametrically opposite to it. A pair of points ''antipodal'' () to each other are situated such that a straight line connecting the two would pass through Ear ...
'', which is at the
Hirshhorn Museum The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was des ...
in Washington, D.C., an "Untitled Kryptos Piece" that was sold to a private collector, and '' Cyrillic Projector'', which contains encrypted
Russian Cyrillic The Russian alphabet (russian: ру́сский алфави́т, russkiy alfavit, , label=none, or russian: ру́сская а́збука, russkaya azbuka, label=none, more traditionally) is the script used to write the Russian language. I ...
text that included an extract from a classified
KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
document. The cipher on one side of ''Antipodes'' repeats the text from ''Kryptos''. Much of the cipher on ''Antipodes'' other side is duplicated on ''Cyrillic Projector''. The Russian portion of the cipher found on ''Cyrillic Projector'' and ''Antipodes'' was solved in 2003 by Frank Corr and Mike Bales independently from each other with translation from Russian plaintext provided by Elonka Dunin. ''Ex Nexum'' was installed in 1997 a
Little Rock Old U.S. Post Office & Courthouse
Some additional sculptures by Sanborn include Native American texts: ''Rippowam'' was installed at the
University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...
, in Stamford in 1999, while '' Lux'' was installed in 2001 at an old
US Post Office The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U. ...
building in
Fort Myers, Florida Fort Myers (or Ft. Myers) is a city in southwestern Florida and the county seat and commercial center of Lee County, Florida, United States. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 92,245 in 20 ...
. ''Iacto'' is located at the
University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
, between the Adler Journalism Building and Main Library. ''Indian Run'' is located next to the U.S. Federal Courthouse in
Beltsville, Maryland Beltsville is a census-designated place (CDP) in northern Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The community was named for Truman Belt, a local landowner. The 2020 census counted 20,133 residents. Beltsville includes the unincorporated ...
, and contains a bronze cylinder perforated with the text of the
Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
Book of the Great Law. This document includes the contribution of the indigenous peoples to the United States legal system. The text is written in Onondaga and was transcribed from the ancient oral tradition of five Iroquois nations. '' A,A'' was installed at the Plaza in front of the new library at the
University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...
, in
Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
, in 2004, and ''Radiance'' was installed at the Department of Energy, Coast, and Environment,
Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...
,
Baton Rouge Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-sma ...
in 2008.


In popular culture

The dust jacket of the US version of
Dan Brown Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his Thriller (genre), thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels ''Angels & Demons'' (2000), ''The Da Vinci Code'' (2003), ''The Lost Symbol'' (2009), ''In ...
's 2003 novel ''
The Da Vinci Code ''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon: the first was his 2000 novel ''Angels & Demons''. ''The Da Vinci Code'' follows symbologist Robert Langdon ...
'' 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 (see above), except the degrees 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 ''Da Vinci Code'' WebQuest, the first answer being ''Kryptos''. The other reference is hidden in the brown "tear" artwork—upside-down words which say "Only WW knows", which is another reference to the second message on ''Kryptos''. ''Kryptos'' features in Dan Brown's 2009 novel ''
The Lost Symbol ''The Lost Symbol'' is a 2009 novel written by American writer Dan Brown. It is a thriller set in Washington, D.C., after the events of ''The Da Vinci Code'', and relies on Freemasonry for both its recurring theme and its major characters. Rele ...
''.''Secrets of the Lost Symbol'', pp.319–326 A small version of ''Kryptos'' appears in the season 5 episode of ''
Alias Alias may refer to: * Pseudonym * Pen name * Nickname Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Alias'' (2013 film), a 2013 Canadian documentary film * ''Alias'' (TV series), an American action thriller series 2001–2006 * ''Alias the ...
'' " S.O.S.". In it,
Marshall Flinkman Marshall J. Flinkman is a fictional character on the television series, ''Alias''. Flinkman, portrayed by Kevin Weisman, is the tech geek at SD-6 and then later the CIA. When a field agent is sent on a mission, Marshall serves in a function simila ...
, in a small moment of comic relief, 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. In the season 2 episode of ''
The King of Queens ''The King of Queens'' is an American television sitcom that ran on CBS from September 21, 1998, to May 14, 2007, a total of nine seasons and 207 episodes. The series was created by Michael J. Weithorn and David Litt, who also served as the show ...
'' " Meet By-Product", a framed picture of ''Kryptos'' hangs on the wall by the door. The progressive metal band
Between the Buried and Me Between the Buried and Me, often abbreviated as BTBAM, is an American progressive metal band from Raleigh, North Carolina. Formed in 2000, the band consists of Tommy Giles Rogers Jr. (lead vocals, keyboards), Paul Waggoner (lead guitar, backing ...
has a reference to ''Kryptos'' in their song "Obfuscation" from their 2009 album, ''
The Great Misdirect ''The Great Misdirect'' is the fifth studio album by American progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me. It was released on October 27, 2009 through Victory Records and was produced by Jamie King. Despite containing only six tracks, the al ...
''. In the book "Muko and the Secret" four young pupils from the class of Naturals learn about the mysterious sculpture hidden in the school. The hints in the book suggest that this is the sculpture of "Kryptos". ''Kryptos'' features in several of '' M. L. Buchmans Miranda Chase series titles including: ''Drone, Thunderbird, Ghostrider, ''and'' White Top.''


See also

* '' A,A'' *
Copiale cipher The Copiale cipher is an encrypted manuscript consisting of 75,000 handwritten characters filling 105 pages in a bound volume. Undeciphered for more than 260 years, the document was cracked in 2011 with the help of modern computer techniques. An ...
*
History of cryptography Cryptography, the use of codes and ciphers to protect secrets, began thousands of years ago. Until recent decades, it has been the story of what might be called classical cryptography — that is, of methods of encryption that use pen and paper, ...
*
Voynich manuscript The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an otherwise unknown writing system, referred to as 'Voynichese'. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438), and stylistic anal ...


Notes


References


Books

* (contains 1–2 pages about Kryptos) * * * *


Journal articles

*


Conference papers

*


Articles


''Kryptos'' 1,735 Alphabetical letters


1999, ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' and
Cypherpunk A cypherpunk is any individual advocating widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change. Originally communicating through the Cypherpunks electronic mailing list, informal g ...
s archive * "Unlocking the secret of ''Kryptos''", March 17, 2000, ''Sun Journal''
"Solving the Enigma of Kryptos"
January 26, 2005, ''
Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...
'', by
Kim Zetter Kim Zetter is an American investigative journalist and author who has covered cybersecurity and national security since 1999. She has broken numerous stories over the years about NSA surveillance, WikiLeaks, and the hacker underground, including ...

"Interest grows in solving cryptic CIA puzzle after link to ''Da Vinci Code''"
June 11, 2005, ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''
"Cracking the Code"
June 19, 2005,
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

Mission Impossible: The Code Even the CIA Can't Crack


External links



by
Jim Sanborn Jim or JIM may refer to: * Jim (given name), a given name * Jim, a diminutive form of the given name James * Jim, a short form of the given name Jimmy * OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism * ''Jim'' (comics), a series by Jim Woodring * ''Ji ...

''Kryptos''
website maintained by
Elonka Dunin Elonka Dunin (; born December 29, 1958) is an American video game developer and cryptologist. Dunin worked at Simutronics Corp. in St. Louis, Missouri from 1990–2014, and in 2015 was Senior Producer at Black Gate Games in Nashville, Tennes ...
(include
''Kryptos'' FAQ
pictures and links)
''Kryptos'' photos
by
Jim Gillogly James J. Gillogly (born 5 March 1946) is an American computer scientist and cryptographer. Biography Early life His interest in cryptography stems from his boyhood, as did his interest in mathematics. By junior high he was inventing his own ciphe ...

''Washington Post'': Cracking the Code of a CIA Sculpture

Wired : Documents Reveal How the NSA Cracked the ''Kryptos'' Sculpture Years Before the CIA


* ttp://www.gsa.gov/fa/#/artwork/23717 The General Services Administration ''Kryptos'' webpage
The General Services Administration ''Ex Nexum'' webpage

The General Services Administration ''Indian Run'' webpage

The General Services Administration ''Binary Systems'' webpage

The Central Intelligence Agency ''Kryptos'' webpage

The National Security Agency ''Kryptos'' webpage

The ''Kryptos'' Project by Julie (Jew-Lee) Irena Lann

Nicole (Monet) Friedrich's ''Kryptos'' Observations



A practical introduction to brute-force decryption of ''Kryptos'' passages 1-3
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