Kryptos
Kryptos is a sculpture by the U.S. American sculptor Jim Sanborn on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA) in Langley, Virginia, USA. Since its inauguration on November 3, 1990, there are many speculations about the attached to their encrypted messages. Employees of the CIA and other cryptanalysts have been many attempts to decipher this.
Description
The main sculpture is made of polished red granite, red and green slate, white quartz, petrified wood, magnetic iron ore and copper and is in the northwestern corner of the courtyard of the New Headquarters Building outside the cafeteria of the authority.
The name Kryptos comes from the ancient Greek word for invisible / hidden / concealed / hidden from. The theme of the sculpture is " intelligence gathering", the collection of intelligence information. The outstanding feature is a large S- shaped copper screen resembling a roll of paper or a sheet of paper that - covered with letters forming an encrypted text - comes from a computer printer.
The characters consist of the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet and the question mark, all of which were cut out of the copper. This " inscription " contains four separate enigmatic messages, each of which is apparently encrypted with a different cipher.
At the same time as the main sculpture was installed, sculptor Sanborn put the other pieces on the site of the CIA, including several large granite slabs with inserted copper plates outside the entrance to the New Headquarters Building. Various Morse code messages are engraved into the copper; one of the plates has an engraved compass rose. Other elements of Sanborn installation include a landscaped outdoor area, a duck pond and several other seemingly unmarked, plates.
Encrypted messages
The code on one half of the sculpture comprises a total of 865 characters. The other half of the sculpture includes a Vigenere encryption. Sanborn worked with a retired CIA employee named Ed Scheidt, CEO / Chairman of the CIA Cryptographic Center, to devise the cryptographic system on the sculpture. Sanborn has since revealed that the sculpture contains a riddle in a mystery that can only be solved if the four " revreencrypted " paragraphs are decrypted. He said that he has given to CIA Director William Hedgcock Webster said during the inauguration of the sculpture, the complete solution. However, Sanborn said in an interview for wired.com in January 2005 that he had not given Webster the entire solution. He confirmed, however, that where written in part 2 is "Who knows the exact location? Only DHW " ( in German: " Who knows the exact spot Only DHW "? ) Refers to William Webster.
Solver of the riddle
1999 James Gillogly announced as the first person publicly to have solved the first three sections. Gillogly, a Southern California computer scientist, deciphered a total of 768 characters. The 97 and 98 characters, which Gillogly could not solve, were the same part that also paved the cryptographer the Government headache. After Gilloglys disclosure came to light that the analyst of the CIA, David Stein, 1998 had solved the same sections with pencil and paper techniques. However, this information is used only within the authority and was not published. At the same time, the NSA announced that they also solver has in its ranks who will not reveal the names and dates before 2005. It was later learned that the team under Ken Miller, along with Dennis McDaniels and two other unknown persons who had solved parts 1-3 the end of 1992 with the help of a computer. However, they knew the fourth section no more advice.
Clarification of 2006
On 19 April 2006 Sanborn contacted the Kryptos Group ( an Internet group that is dedicated to the Kryptos puzzle ) to inform them that the solution adopted for part 2 was wrong. He had a single letter for aesthetic reasons from the code. The result was a change in the plaintext of " XLAYERTWO " ( right ) in " IDBYROWS " ( wrong).
Similar sculptures
Kryptos is the first cryptographic sculpture of Sanborn. After Kryptos, he began more sculptures with codes and other symbols, create to, including the Antipodes, which is in Washington Hirshhorn Museum, an " untitled piece cryptography ", which was sold to a private collector, and the Cyrillic Projector, with an encrypted Russian text which contains an excerpt from a secret KGB document. The ciphertext on one side of Antipodes repeats the text of Kryptos. The ciphertext on the Russian side can also be found on the Cyrillic Projector. The Russian part of the ciphertext on the Cyrillic Projector and Antipodes was solved in 2003 by international efforts, organized by Elonka Dunin. The cryptographic components were dissolved independently by Frank Corr and Mike Bales.
Cultural influences
The dust jacket of the U.S. version of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code contains two references to Kryptos: One on the back cover ( slightly red printed coordinates on dark red, vertically near the blurb ) refers to the coordinates in plain text of Part 2 are mentioned. However, the locations of the degree of information by one are different. (. " Except the degrees digit is off by one" ) were as Brown and his publisher in the same year asked about it both gave the same answer: " The discrepancy is intentional. " The other clue is in Browns imaging "tear " - the upside-down words "Only WW knows. " ( in German: " Only WW knows it. "). This is another indication of the second part of Kryptos.
In Dan Brown's novel The Lost Symbol the attempt to decipher the work of art by CIA employees is discussed in passing. The previously known Kryptos plain text should therefore resemble fragments of ancient Masonic traditions that occupy a central role in the book.
In an episode of Alias - The Agent, "SOS " claims the protagonist Marshall Flinkman to have cracked the code only when viewing the sculpture. The result, which he describes, strongly resembles that of the first two already decrypted parts.
Solutions
Here are solutions of Part 1 to 3 of the sculpture. Misspellings in the texts are reproduced as they were decrypted. Kryptos K1 and K2 ciphers are polyalphabetic substitutions that use a Vigenere tableau, as shown in the other half of the sculpture. K3 is a transposition cipher. K4 is still unsolved.
Solution 1
Keywords: Kryptos, Palimpsest
German:
Solution 2
Keywords: Kryptos, Abscissa
German:
In April 2006, Sanborn said that he had made a mistake in the sculpture, by having an "X " will be omitted for aesthetic reasons, which should show a break, and so was the translated text: " ... FOUR SECONDS WEST ID BY ROW S " but really should read: " ... FOUR SECONDS WEST X LAYER TWO ".
Note: This point is located approximately 60 meters south of the sculpture.
Solution 3
German:
This is a paraphrased and misspelled quotation from Howard Carter in connection with the grave opening of Tutankhamun from his 1923 book The Tomb of Tutankhamun written. The question with which it ends is that of Lord Carnarvon, to which Carter replied (in the book ): In the actual notes of 26 November 1922 " Wonderful things. " His answer. " Yes, it is wonderful"
Solution 4
This part is public still unknown, although there is an active Yahoo! Group ( founded in 2003 ), which coordinates the work of more than 2,000 members to the solution. Jim Sanborn revealed in November 2010 that the string NYPVTT am (instead of 64-69 ) for the word BERLIN.