Kryptos :  so mysterious  fact, that not even the CIA has completely cracked the code.



Kryptos is a mysterious encrypted sculpture designed by artist Jim Sanborn which sits right outside the headquarters of the CIA in Langley, Va. It's so mysterious, in fact, that not even the CIA has completely cracked the code.The main sculpture is located in the northwest corner of the New Headquarters Building courtyard, outside of the Agency cafeteria. The sculpture comprises four large copper plates with other elements made of red and green granite, white quartz, and petrified wood.

The name Kryptos comes from the Greek word for "hidden", and the theme of the sculpture is "intelligence gathering." The most prominent feature is a large vertical S-shaped copper screen resembling a scroll, or piece of paper emerging from a computer printer, covered with characters constituting encrypted text. The characters consist of the 26 letters of the standard Latin alphabet and question marks cut out of the copper. The main sculpture contains four separate enigmatic messages, three of which have been solved.
At the same time as the main sculpture was installed, sculptor Jim Sanborn also placed several other pieces around 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 engraved in the copper, and one of the slabs has an engraved compass rose and a lodestone. Other elements of Sanborn's installation include a landscaped area, a duck pond, a reflecting pool, and several other seemingly unmarked slabs.
The cost of the sculpture was $250,000

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." 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 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.

EMUFPHZLRFAXYUSDJKZLDKRNSHGNFIVJ    
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCD
YQTQUXQBQVYUVLLTREVJYQTMKYRDMFD    AKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYP
VFPJUDEEHZWETZYVGWHKKQETGFQJNCE    BRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPT
GGWHKK?DQMCPFQZDQMMIAGPFXHQRLG     CYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTO
TIMVMZJANQLVKQEDAGDVFRPJUNGEUNA    DPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOS
QZGZLECGYUXUEENJTBJLBQCRTBJDFHRR  
 ETOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSA
YIZETKZEMVDUFKSJHKFWHKUWQLSZFTI    
FOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSAB
HHDDDUVH?DWKBFUFPWNTDFIYCUQZERE    GSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABC
EVLDKFEZMOQQJLTTUGSYQPFEUNLAVIDX   HABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCD
FLGGTEZ?FKZBSFDQVGOGIPUFXHHDRKF   
 IBCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDE
FHQNTGPUAECNUVPDJMQCLQUMUNEDFQ     JCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEF
ELZZVRRGKFFVOEEXBDMVPNFQXEZLGRE    KDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFG
DNQFMPNZGLFLPMRJQYALMGNUVPDXVKP    LEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGH
DQUMEBEDMHDAFMJGZNUPLGEWJLLAETG    MFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHI

ENDYAHROHNLSRHEOCPTEOIBIDYSHNAIA   NGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJL
CHTNREYULDSLLSLLNOHSNOSMRWXMNE     
OHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJL
TPRNGATIHNRARPESLNNELEBLPIIACAE   
 PIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLM
WMTWNDITEENRAHCTENEUDRETNHAEOE     QJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMN
TFOLSEDTIWENHAEIOYTEYQHEENCTAYCR   RLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQ
EIFTBRSPAMHHEWENATAMATEGYEERLB     
SMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQU
TEEFOASFIOTUETUAEOTOARMAEERTNRTI   
TNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUV
BSEDDNIAAHTTMSTEWPIEROAGRIEWFEB    UQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVW
AECTDDHILCEIHSITEGOEAOSDDRYDLORIT  VUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWX
RKLMLEHAGTDHARDPNEOHMGFMFEUHE      WVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZ
ECDMRIPFEIMEHNLSSTTRTVDOHW?OBKR    XWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZK
UOXOGHULBSOLIFBBWFLRVQQPRNGKSSO    YXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKR
TWTQSJQSSEKZZWATJKLUDIAWINFBNYP   
 ZZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRY
VTTMZFPKWGDKZXTJCDIGKUHUAUEKCAR     ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCD

Sanborn worked with a retiring CIA employee named Ed Scheidt, Chairman of the CIA Cryptographic Center, 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 decrypted. He has given conflicting information about the sculpture's answer, saying at one time that he gave the complete solution to then-CIA director William H. Webster during the dedication ceremony; but later, he also said that he had not given Webster the entire solution. He did, however, confirm that where in part two it says "Who knows the exact location? Only WW," "WW" was intended to refer to William Webster. Sanborn also confirmed that should he die before the entire sculpture becomes deciphered, there will be someone able to confirm the solution.


The first person to publicly announce solving the first three sections, in 1999, was Jim Gillogly, a computer scientist from southern California After Gillogly's announcement, the CIA revealed that their analyst David Stein had also solved the same sections in 1998, using pencil and paper techniques, though at the time of his solution the information was only disseminated within the intelligence community, and no public announcement was made. The NSA also claimed at that time that they had solvers, but would not reveal names or dates until 2000, when it was learned that an NSA team led by Ken Miller, along with Dennis McDaniels and two other unnamed individuals, had solved parts 1–3 in late 1992All of these early attempts to solve Kryptos found that K2 ended with WESTIDBYROWS, but in 2006, Sanborn announced that he had made an error in part 2, which changed the last part of the plaintext from WESTIDBYROWS to WESTXLAYERTWO


The following are the solutions of parts 1–3 of the sculpture. Misspellings present in the code are included as-is. Kryptos K1 and K2 ciphers are polyalphabetic substitution, using a Vigenère tableau similar to the tableau on the other half of the sculpture. K3 is a transposition cipher, and K4 is still unsolved.

Solution 1

Keywords: Kryptos, Palimpsest
BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION

Solution 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 the Kryptos Group  (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"
Note: The coordinates mentioned in the plaintext: 38°57′6.5″N 77°8′44″W ; on Google Maps ; analysis of the cited location . The point is about 150 feet southeast of the sculpture itself.

Solution 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."

Solution 4
Part 4 remains unsolved, though there is an active Yahoo! Group (formed in 2003) that coordinates 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. In November 2010, Sanborn released another clue: Letters 64-69 NYPVTT in part 4 encode the text BERLIN



The sculpture contains four inscriptions, and although three of them have been cracked, the fourth remains elusive (Read what the first three inscriptions say here). In 2006 Sanborn let slip that there are clues in the first inscriptions to the last one, and in 2010 he released another clue: the Letters 64-69 NYPVTT in part 4 encode the text BERLIN.

Think you have what it takes to solve it?

yours

aravindan