The Mystery of Kryptos

I don't know how many of you are actually interested in cryptosystems and cryptography, but i think it's pretty fascinating. As an artist myself I feel a small connection to the sheer magnitude and tenacity Jim Sanborn has put into his work. Kryptos in particular is pretty amazing. For about 15 years it has stood in the courtyard of the headquarters of the CIA in Washington DC. As of yet, the final 97 characters have not been solved. The sculpture itself is a multi part sculpture that covers several areas at the headquarters. If you want to take a look for yourself, the best place to get information is at http://elonka.com/kryptos/. Once there you will find a wealth of information about not only the sculpture but about cryptography as well.

In the book Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson, a lot of cryptosystems are an integral part of the overall story which takes place in both WWII and modern day. Just so you have another place to look at the 97-98 characters that are unsolved, I have them posted here:

?OBKR
UOXOGHULBSOLIFBBWFLRVQQPRNGKSSO
TWTQSJQSSEKZZWATJKLUDIAWINFBNYP
VTTMZFPKWGDKZXTJCDIGKUHUAUEKCAR

I have used the courier font on purpose for the above code so that the characters line up correctly. If you want to take a stab at this puzzle, you might try starting by reversing the sequence to begin with...I don't know much about cryptography, I just find it interesting.

The full transcript can be found at http://elonka.com/kryptos/transcript.html. As stated by the author, the entire text can be decrypted by transcript alone, but the final meaning has something to do with events that took place during the construction of the piece. My brother has an interesting take on what the final subject may be. You can see his summary at http://www.strangerthanfiction.org .

Anyway I just thought you might want to take a look, it's all very fascinating.

-J