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Solution to CIA’s Kryptos sculpture is found in Smithsonian vault
- d--b 1y agoThis is about the Kryptos cypher, it should be in the submission's title, cause people here know what it is mostly.
- jrmg 1y agoThey are guidelines, not rules, but the site guidelines here advise submitters to use the original title for linked articles: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoAlt title from NYT header: Solution to CIA’s Kryptos Sculpture Is Found in Smithsonian Vault
- ricksunny 1y agonot clickbaity enough. journos got mortgages to pay & the Sulzbergers need their dividends.
- vintermann 1y agoWrong kind of clickbait headline for HN though, probably more interesting that it's about the kryptos sculpture.
- mNovak 1y agoAnd frankly a Kryptos solution is much more interesting than some arbitrary CIA secret!
- dang 1y agoThanks, we've put the HMTL doc title up there now.
- mikequinlan 1y ago>Jim Sanborn planned to auction off the solution to Kryptos, the puzzle he sculpted for the intelligence agency’s headquarters. Two fans of the work then discovered the solution. Gift link https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/science/kryptos-cia-solution-sanborn-auction.html?unlocked_article_code=1.t08._Qv2.IT6KV_DWKg9a&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/science/kryptos-cia-solut...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ricksunny 1y agoI like this comment: Victor Wong writes, “If they don’t have the method,” she said, “it’s not solved,” she said. That does raise a philosophical point to the craft of intelligence gathering. Speaking as a professional librarian, I do applaud the use of ATI (access to information) to find the appropriate data -- it's akin to a WW2 unit capturing an Enigma codebook.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ricksunny 1y ago(for posterity: my use of quotemarks left something to be desired here - the quote 'that does..codebook' is Mr. Wong's quote, not my own. I got an uncharacteristically large number of upvotes from the comment above. I suspect had less to do with HNers' appreciation of library science, and more to their expressing appreciation of one's display of their professional bonafides, which I regret, in this case, are not my own to profess.) Although I wonder if HN's commenting system removed any addititional quotemarks I may have placed at the time.
- vintermann 1y agoAs I see it it's a lesson about finding out things in the real world. It's even a little poetic that the people finding the solution are a pair of investigative journalists, digging up information that was technically already out there, rather than a puzzle solving cryptologist "breaking down the front door of the problem" so to say. Kobek may actually have pulled that off once before, by the way. I'm pretty sure that his Zodiac killer candidate, Paul A. Doerr, will turn out to have been correct.
- nielsbot 1y ago> “This is a problem everybody has been attacking as a STEM problem,” Mr. Kobek said in an interview, referring to the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics that underlie cryptography. Cryptographic science, he argued, could not solve Kryptos — “but library science could.”
- qingcharles 1y ago"Security is only as strong as the weakest link" and all that.
- dang 1y agoRecent and related: The secret code behind the CIA's Kryptos puzzle is up for sale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44907366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44907366 - Aug 2025 (53 comments)
- nosmokewhereiam 1y ago"side-channel attack" and it was super effective!
- hinkley 1y ago$9 hammer.
- curiousgal 1y ago[flagged]
- dang 1y ago"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- curiousgal 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45630429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45630429
- dang 1y agoNot sure I follow you here
- 1oooqooq 1y ago[flagged]
- tptacek 1y agoHe's 79 and covered by Medicare.
- irq 1y agoWhich will, at best, cover a portion of his medical bills.
- yndoendo 1y agoThere was a Standford professor that was wondering why he had void of cancer patients around 63 and 64. Turns out people wait to get on Medicare for treatment because they cannot afford it with their standard health insurance. USA would save money in the long run with Universal health care. Since people in the US wait until it gets bad before seeking treatment. This means fights cancer at stage 3 and 4 instead of 1 and 2. Latter the stage the more it costs and less likely for success. This is one reason foreign doctors come to the US to study and train. Modern countries with Universal Health Care treat at stage 1 and 2 with 3 and 4 being rare ... except for the USA. Need to study advance cancer and aggressive, this USA is a great place. [0] https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/03/Cancer-diagnoses-implies-patients-wait-for-Medicare.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/03/Cancer-diagno...
- tptacek 1y agoThis doesn't have anything to do with the thread, and hashing this out would tilt a story about Kryptos sharply towards a story on health policy. He's 79, he's very covered by Medicare.
- wahnfrieden 1y agoWhere is the rule that comments must stay on topic and avoid diversion? It was a more interesting and informative comment than yours that you've restated here (particularly given that being "very covered by Medicare" does not even counter what you originally replied to, as it will not cover all or perhaps even most costs)
- janalsncm 1y agoSo the central controversy in the story is whether the journalist fans should share the solution with the world or keep quiet for the auction. Sanborn wants the money for medical reasons so he needs to maintain a high sale price. The two fans want to share the solution with the world. Presumably the winner of the auction will be buying a severely depreciating asset: the right to know but not disclose the solution. There are at least four people who have the solution and as soon as one of them shares it, its value goes to zero. Maybe the “solution” to this meta problem is simple: auction it off to the public with a go fund me. As soon as it reaches $500k, publish the solution. That way everyone wins. The whole thing got more complicated with the addition of lawyers, not less. I don’t see how the two fans violated any contracts with the artist or auction house since they never signed one. But of course lawyers will charge a ton for you to find out.
- tptacek 1y agoDo I understand part of the complexity of the situation is that Kryptos is in some sense "crackable" (unlike real cryptography), and these two people sleuthed their way to the answer book without solving it? Which is not quite exactly the same thing as them independently working out a solution; it's more like a nicer and more legal version of breaking into the guy's house and stealing it out of his desk drawer?
- moron4hire 1y agoAt the state level, it's a method that is in bounds.
- tptacek 1y agoI don't have an opinion! As a cryptography pentester, Kryptos has always kind of set my teeth on edge (Wikipedia had editors covering cryptography topics whose expertise was rooted in Kryptos puzzle-crypto). But one of the smartest people I know is also a Kryptos enthusiast so this is all very complicated for me.
- irjustin 1y ago
- rgovostes 1y agoI thought that, in light of this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45621067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45621067, we're only a few days from seeing the solution. However, the auction now reads > Upon being notified, the Smithsonian immediately sealed Sanborn's archives for 50 years to protect Sanborn's intellectual property rights. Sanborn actually showed off some of his worksheets during a PBS interview years ago, which I assume are the same documents later given to the Smithsonian. At one point I looked into buying the B-roll footage to take a closer look at them, but I discovered enterprising Kryptos sleuths had already done so years before.
- dh2022 1y agorelevant to this discussion is an essay from James Mickens : https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf This essay is relevant to this situation because the threat model in James’ essay is almost the same way this cipher was decrypted.
- ProjectArcturis 1y agoIt seems to me that if a puzzle has gone unsolved for 35 years despite many very skilled people trying hard to solve it... It is not actually a good puzzle? Like, here - here's a code that no one will ever solve: ITIWKSMNDIWKD WJSIKWMWMSONQ Turn that into a sculpture and put it outside the CIA.
- KingMob 1y agoPretty sure I cracked it: B-E-S-U-R-E-T-O-D-R-I-N-K Y-O-U-R-O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E
- _aavaa_ 1y ago> Last week, Mr. Kobek and Mr. Byrne received an email from lawyers for RR Auction that threatened legal action if they published the text, citing copyright infringement and interference with contracts. Shameful behavior.
- tidi0x 1y agoI see people upset about the solution being found "Through other means", but this is technically still in the spirit of the puzzle. 1. That is technically normal espionage practices, the CIA wouldn't be the CIA if they were only reliant on cryptography... (they'd be the NSA) 2. The solution to this puzzle would bring closure to at this point generations of curious people. 3. On the more technical side, it's been discussed that the potential method for decrypting K4 is more or less insolvable through normal patterns because Jim not being a cryptographer decided to use a multi stage encryption method which relies on knowing both (or multiple) keys with accuracy. The risk here with him not being a cryptographer is not realizing the how hard/impossible he might have made it. 4. I also like to believe as we culturally move through time the potential Keywords or transposition shift keys may dissolve away. For all we know he may have chosen a word that was colloquial to the 80's, CIA, Espionage...ect that has just dissolved with time. I want to see the solution, I want to reiterate Jim was not a cryptographer and may have gone buck wild with his encryption. Just throwing out some solution banter. I believe one layer of K4 is null cipher, but I think its screwed by a transposition of which I think the key is based off K0, or something to do with the lat-long coordinates. Also when he says Berlin clock I think he means Kalendarplatz, this would make more sense as he is a sculpture artist who works with forces of nature. My only other call out is he may have tied Kryptos into the north east area of the CIA, potentially linking it to the memorial gardens or the wall of the fallen officers.
- hinkley 1y agoI always thought it was kinda stupid that this puzzle was made for the CIA instead of NSA in the first place. Some other responders sound like they agree. And as someone else said, this is exactly the sort of solution the CIA would come up with. So it should be considered in bounds.
- CamperBob2 1y ago"After careful consideration, we conclude that the puzzle doesn't exist." https://imgur.com/gallery/fbi-cia-kgb-5koAv3H https://imgur.com/gallery/fbi-cia-kgb-5koAv3H
- 1y ago
- elahieh 1y agoInterview with the Smithsonian researchers here https://zonamotel.substack.com/p/interview-kryptos-k4-uncovered-jarett https://zonamotel.substack.com/p/interview-kryptos-k4-uncove...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- buzzlileabee 1y ago[dead]