Kryptos

Kryptos



Kryptos is a sculpture by the American artist Jim Sanborn that is located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia. Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about the meaning of the encrypted messages it bears. Of the four messages, three have been solved, while the fourth remains as one of the most famous unsolved codes in the world. The sculpture continues to be of interest to cryptanalysts, both amateur and professional, who are attempting to decipher the final section. The sculptor has given two clues to this section.


Description


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, half of which consists of encrypted text. The characters are all found within the 26 letters of the standard Latin alphabet, along with question marks, and are cut out of the copper. The main sculpture contains four separate enigmatic messages, three of which have been deciphered.[1]

In addition to the main part of the sculpture, Jim Sanborn also placed other pieces at the CIA grounds, such as several large granite slabs with sandwiched copper sheets outside the entrance to the New Headquarters Building. Many morse code messages are found on these copper sheets, and one of the slabs has an engraving of a compass rose pointing to a lodestone. Other elements of Sanborn's installation include a landscaped area, a duck pond, a reflecting pool, and other pieces of stone.

The cost of the sculpture was $250,000.[2]

Encrypted messages


The ciphertext on the left-hand side 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 from this side of Kryptos "for aesthetic reasons, to keep the sculpture visually balanced".[3] There are also three misspelled words in the plaintext of the deciphered first three parts, which Sanborn has said was intentional, and a few letters near the beginning of the bottom half of the left side are the only characters on the scroll in superscript. The right-hand side of the sculpture comprises a keyed Vigenère encryption tableau, consisting of 867 letters. One of the lines of this tableau is one character too long, which Sanborn has indicated was accidental.[4]

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 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 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 within the part of the plaintext of the second message which reads "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.[5]

Solvers


The first person to announce publicly that he had solved the first three sections was Jim Gillogly, a computer scientist from southern California, who deciphered these sections using a computer, and revealed his solutions in 1999.[6] After Gillogly's announcement, the CIA revealed that their analyst David Stein also had solved the same sections in 1998 using pencil and paper techniques, although at the time of his solution the information was only disseminated within the intelligence community[7] and no public announcement was made until July 1999.[8][9]

The NSA also claimed that some of their employees had solved the same three parts, 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 parts 1–3 in late 1992.[10] In 2013, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Elonka Dunin, the NSA released documents which show the NSA became involved in 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 parts of the sculpture.[11][12] All of these early attempts to solve Kryptos found that part two ended with WESTIDBYROWS, but in 2005, Monet Friedrich, a computer scientist from Vancouver, British Columbia, determined that another possible plaintext was WESTXLAYERTWO.[13] Later, in 2006, Sanborn announced that he had made an error in part 2, and confirmed that the last part of the plaintext was WESTXLAYERTWO, and not WESTIDBYROWS.[4]

Solutions


The following are the solutions of parts 1–3 of the sculpture.[14] Misspellings present in the text are included verbatim. Kryptos sections one ("K1") and two ("K2")'s ciphers are polyalphabetic substitution ciphers using a Vigenère tableau similar to the tableau on the right-hand side of the sculpture. Part three ("K3") is a transposition cipher, and part four ("K4") remains unsolved.

Solution of passage 1

Keywords: Kryptos, Palimpsest

BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION
Solution of passage 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 an online community dedicated to the Kryptos puzzle to inform them that the accepted solution to part 2 was incorrect. He said that he made an error in the sculpture by omitting an "X" used to separate sentences, for aesthetic reasons, and that the deciphered text that ended "...FOUR SECONDS WEST ID BY ROWS" should actually be "...FOUR SECONDS WEST X LAYER TWO".[15]

Note: The coordinates mentioned in the plaintext: 38°57′6.5″N 77°8′44″W are for a point that is approximately 150 feet southeast of the sculpture.[1]

Solution of passage 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 November 26, 1922 field notes, however, his reply was, "Yes, it is wonderful.".[16]

Solution of passage 4

Part 4 has not been publicly solved as of yet.

Clues given


When commenting in 2006 about his error in section 2, Sanborn said that the answers to the first three sections contain clues to the fourth section.[17] In November 2010, Sanborn released a clue, publicly stating that "NYPVTT", the 64th-69th letters in part four, become "BERLIN" after decryption.[18][19] Sanborn gave The New York Times another clue in November 2014: the letters "MZFPK", the 70th-74th letters in part four, become "CLOCK" after decryption.[20] This may be a direct reference to the Berlin Clock. Sanborn further stated that in order to solve section 4, "You'd better delve into that particular clock," but added, "There are several really interesting clocks in Berlin."[21]


Mystery sea creature

Mystery sea creature - with 'fur' and 'a beak' - washes up on remote Russian beach, baffling scientists

Some say the 'mutant' is a Ganges River dolphin - but are confused by its fur

Mystery sea creature - with 'fur' and 'a beak' - washes up on remote Russian beach, baffling scientists


A mystery sea creature – with a ‘long beak’ and ‘furry tail’ – is said to be baffling marine experts over the world after its carcass reportedly washed up on a beach along the east coast of Russia.

The Siberian Times says the unidentified sea animal was discovered by locals near Shakhtersk Airport on Sakhalin – a Russian island that is so far east, it is closer to America than Moscow.

Bloodied, torn apart and with bones protruding, scientists say they have yet to attempt to identify the strange prehistoric-like “mutant.”

The Times describes it as being “twice the size of a human being” with “a huge nose like a bird’s beak.”

Some people have taken to social media to say the remains belong to a Ganges River dolphin – which is normally found in freshwater in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh – but it’s the presence of fur on the creature’s tail that’s causing a fuss.

One social media user joked: “Probably, our summer is so cold that even the Indian dolphins getting into local waters are covered with fur.”

Deputy Head of the Forecasting department of the Sakhalin Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography, Nikolay Kim, said: “Judging by the appearance of the head, this is clearly some big dolphin. According to a characteristic of the skin, it is a rare species.

“I doubt that it lived in our waters. Most likely, the animal was brought by the warm current.

“We often get tropical and subtropical species here and, when they cool down, they stay here and then die.

“I can confidently say that this is some kind of a dolphin. However, it has fur. It’s unusual. Dolphins do not have any fur.”

For now, though, the mystery remains.

Source : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mystery-sea-creature-with-fur-and-a-beak-washes-up-on-remote-russian-beach-baffling-scientists-10358161.html

Dragon Facts

Dragons

Dragon Facts


Dragons deserve a category all their own because they are beasts found all over the world. But there are two distinct types of dragon: the dragon of the Western world and the dragon of the Eastern world.

Western Dragons

These enormous, fire-breathing serpents have scaly green bodies and huge red wings. Greedy creatures, they hoard gold treasure in dens under the earth. Fierce and always hungry, a Western dragon will eat anything but especially likes weak, young, human flesh. Dragons live in caves, mountains, or lakes. They were particularly active in the Middle Ages, when brave knights challenged them to battle.

Native Americans believed in snake dragons, supernatural wisdom.

Eastern Dragons


Compared to Western dragons, these beasts are quite small. Their bodies are long, and they have two horns for ears. They have no wings, and their soft breath is said to form clouds. They do not roar; instead they make the sounds of beating gongs and jingling bells. Chinese dragons dine on sparrows. They live wherever there is water. They are kind and wise friends of human beings.

Source : http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0768948.html