Code maker cracks before code does
“We have many problems that are difficult to resolve — intimidating, perhaps even scary,” he said. “It gives people great pleasure to pick up on one that they think they have a chance of solving.”
Deciphered
The message of Kryptos, and a partial guide to its solution, is contained in the panels of the sculpture. Sanborn devised the codes that he used for the passages with the help of Edward Scheidt, a retired chairman of the CIA’s cryptographic center. The passages follow a theme of concealment and discovery, each more difficult to decipher than the last. The first reads:
BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION.(The misspelling was intentional, Sanborn has said, to make it more difficult to decode — or, as he put it, “to mix it up.”)
The second includes the location of CIA headquarters by latitude and longitude, and asks:
DOES LANGLEY KNOW
ABOUT THIS? THEY SHOULD: IT’S BURIED OUT THERE SOMEWHERE. X WHO KNOWS THE EXACT LOCATION? ONLY WW.
The “W.W.” is a reference to William Webster, who headed the CIA when the sculpture was unveiled. Sanborn provided him with a key for deciphering the messages.
Webster, who left the CIA in 1991, declined a request for an interview.
The third passage paraphrases, again with a bit of misspelling, the account by Egyptologist Howard Carter of opening King Tut’s tomb.
With spacing and punctuation added, the text reads:
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
The fourth section is shorter than the others; it’s just 97 characters, a fact that “could, in itself, present a decryption challenge,” Scheidt said in an exchange of emails. Common solution methods rely on the frequency of the most common letters, like E, T, A, O, I and N. In addition, he said, the last passage uses what is known as a masking technique, a further level of obfuscation.
The clues Sanborn has offered so far are in the form of a “crib,” which is a word or phrase that appears in the decrypted text. The 2010 clue was the word BERLIN, in the 64th through 69th positions of that final passage. In 2014 he revealed the word CLOCK in the next five, 70 through 74.
While the response was a frenzy of activity among enthusiasts, the result, in cryptographic terms, was bupkis.
So now, Sanborn, at 74, is giving the world another shot: the word NORTHEAST, at positions 26 through 34. Will it be enough?
Did we mention Sanborn is 74?
Holding onto one of the world’s most enticing secrets can be stressful. Some would-be code-breakers have appeared at his home.
Many felt they had solved the puzzle, and wanted to check with Sanborn. Sometimes forcefully. Sometimes, in person.
Elonka Dunin, a game developer and consultant who has created a rich page of background information on the sculpture and oversees the best known online community of thousands of Kryptos fans, said that some who contact her (sometimes also at home) are obsessive and appear to have tipped into mental illness. “I am always gentle to them and do my best to listen to them,” she said.
Sanborn has set up systems to allow people to check their proposed solutions without having to contact him directly. The most recent incarnation is an email-based process with a fee of $50 to submit a potential solution. He receives regular inquiries, so far none of them successful.
The ongoing process is exhausting, he said, adding, “It’s not something I thought I would be doing 30 years on.”
But time is passing. And while he makes no claims to mathematical accomplishment, he can do basic arithmetic. “For the past few years I have been trying to figure out how to have this ‘system’ survive my death,” Sanborn said, “and it has not been easy.”
He has decided that if the code is not broken when he dies, the secret will be put up for auction. He might even do it in his lifetime. “I do realize that the value of Kryptos is unknown and that perhaps this concept will bear little fruit,” he said.