A number of years ago, a sculpture was commissioned for CIA Headquarters in Langley. It was placed in a courtyard, and on it was inscribed a long encrypted message that was kept secret and known only by the sculptor and the then-CIA director (I forget who it was at that time). I distinctly remember seeing footage of the sculptor leaning over and whispering the message to the CIA director, who then chuckled. My question is, has anyone “cracked” the sculpture’s message? If so, what does it say? Are there any photos of this sculpture available on the Big Bad Web? This has been bothering me for quite some time.
Here’s an article from a little over a year ago; it says all but 97 of the letter have been deciphered. I don’t know what’s happened since then.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/onair/WorldNewsTonight/wnt9990615_ciacode.html
Don’t try to see this if you are not an employee. I was in D.c. area on a Sunday recently. The day before I had been to the National Museum of Cryptography up by the NSA headquarters in Ft. Meade. Next day I thought I would try to see Kryptos. I called CIA, but got a recording since it
was Sun. Drove down the border of CIA grounds, met a cop who told me to leave (while I was on public road). Tried a little later at the main gate to find someone a little more friendly (prepared to drive right out if told I couldn’t see the sculpture), and met the same cop. Doh! I guess I pushed his anti-authority button hard… he gave me 2 tickets!
Since the entire text of the thing is on the ABC article cited above, there is no reason why anyone with a computer and a few hours couldn’t crack it…
Hm…that second bit is, I believe, from Carter’s journal, when he first peered into the burial chamber of Tutankhamun. Interesting.
Quite possibly. Although it’s my understanding that there’s an agreement within the CIA not to use computers to crack the code, but rather good ole fashioned brainwork.
It might say that in the article (I read an article about it before and so didn’t bother with the link), i just thought it was interesting enough to bring up.
This probably won’t help, but here it is anyway:
The Frequency Alphabet: ETAONRISHDLFCMUGYPWBVKXJQZ
This is every letter in the English language arranged in descending order of usage. This only helps if the code is a simple substitution, which the CIA’s code most certainly is not. Hey, just thought y’all might like to know.
I thought the frequency was ETOAIN SHRDLU (then the others). I always saw that as a swear word in MAD magazine…
According to the article, it the CIA or NSA could do it in a few hours with a computer. Thus, I’m doubting that just anyone could. Given that there are certainly a number of experienced cryptographers out there, I’d say that it’s probably been solved, though.
Slapping myself in the forehead…
Thanks. That was bugging me…
According to Unca Cece, these are the most commonly used English letters “according to one calculation”. See Cecil’s What’s the origin of the mysterious phrase “etaoin shrdlu”? for more details.