mission Impossible

Perhaps the most famous inscription in the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, whose headquarters is located, as we all know, in Langley - the state of Virginia, are the biblical words jagged in the marble of the main hall: free ”(And may you see the truth, and the truth will make you free, John 8:32) However, in recent years, another text has been the subject of general excitement and interest; The text, which is the quintessence of everything happening in the walls of the CIA, is 865 characters seemingly absolute nonsense, squeezed into a 1.3 cm thick copper sheet.

The Kryptos installation, created by a man named James Sanborn, settled at the CIA court back in 1988, when the construction of a new and more modern office began behind the main building. The agency needed a street sculpture between the two buildings, so the choice fell on a sample of art “for all”, which in fact no one can ever “see.” Sanborn did not just call his creation the Greek word "hidden", because this work is the clearest illustration of the secrecy, secrecy, intimacy and illusiveness of human life, the text of which is one of the most ideal codes for today.

Despite the fact that 20 years have passed since the installation, the text of the message is still far from being decrypted. The world community of cryptanalysts, along with the workers of the CIA and the FBI, for all this time only the first three sections out of four have been dismantled. Oddly enough, this didn’t bring them closer to the final goal, because the sharp prose that opens after decryption makes the puzzle even more confusing. So far, 97 characters of the last part (known as K4) remain undecided, and the longer this “race” lasts, the more people go crazy with powerlessness.

And for good reason. Regardless of how one person or another perceives Kryptos himself, he is the embodiment of the nature of the CIA - after all, he was created just to show everyone and everyone why the secrets and tricks fascinate us so much.
“It's all about the power of secrecy,” says Sanborn himself, living together with his wife on a whole island. He is tall and strong and looks much younger than his 63 years. Behind the house is his last work - a huge 9-meter copy of the world's first particle accelerator, surrounded by the original details of the Manhattan project. Atomic "gear" fits perfectly into the overall concept of creativity Sanborn, which he himself calls "the concentration of invisible forces."

Kryptos is perhaps the most powerful statement of the author about what we don’t know and don’t see in this world about things that seem to be right in front of our eyes. The whole sculpture is not only a huge, S-shaped copper plate with extruded symbols, standing exactly at the expense of a part of the mahogany trunk. Below scattered massive pieces of granite, forming a small fountain. And despite the fact that most of the installation is located near the CIA cafeteria, where analysts and spies can enjoy its view while eating in the fresh air, Kryptos reveals its secret completely on the other side - facing the new building.
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James Sanborn is sometimes called the Devil's Agent, because he will never tell his secret. The heart of Kryptos, the copper plate, as the author says, “will eventually reveal all the secrets to others”.

When Sanborn began work on the order, he knew practically nothing about cryptography. So when Ed Scheidt , who had just completed his activities as head of the Langley cryptographic center, offered his services to James, he literally flourished with joy. However, Ed Scheidt served the two masters all the time of cooperation with Sanborn: on the one hand, he needed to maintain the secrets of the Office, and on the other, together with a person who has no clue about cryptography, create a unique piece of code and sculpture.

It all started small - Shade trained Sanborn on basic cryptography techniques from the late 19th century to the Second World War. After experiments with various encryption methods, including literal substitutions, matrix displacement and transposition, both masters (each in his own field) came to the conclusion that it would be ideal to resort to the “old school” methods — craft cryptography. They both believed that it would make experts sweat and create some pressure on the CIA workers, who rightly considered themselves to be one of the best cipher masters. However, Sanborn made all of these decisions alone and did not share them with Sheydt. “I thought that the first three sections would be decrypted in weeks, perhaps months,” says the author. Sheydt believed that the whole puzzle would be solved in less than 7 years. Both were wrong.

During the two-year construction, there were moments of intrigue and paranoia, as it is always difficult to maintain a balance between the target and the client. “We had to play on the secret side,” says Ed Scheidt about nameless people with tele lenses and highly sensitive microphones. “There were people trying to climb the stairs to the wall of my studio in order to take pictures of the interior,” recalls Sanborn. At some point, he even came to the conclusion that the factions within the CIA itself wanted to destroy the project, since sometimes there were completely unexplainable difficulties. “For example,” says Sanborn: “Once a huge truck full of stones for the courtyard disappeared. Just gone. And was never found. I saw him in the evening, came back in the morning - but he is not. No one ever told me exactly what happened to him. ”

Sanborn finished the sculpture on time - to the opening of a new building in November 1990. The copper table was installed, and the author and his adviser were counting on it to the last detail. When the world of cryptography learned about a new challenge in its direction, the best specialists in decryption got to work. What was Sanborn's surprise when, for the first 7 years, sections K1, K2 and K3 were not “opened”. The first winner, a CIA worker named David Stein, spent 400 hours of personal time on sections and really treated the disclosure of the code as a religious revelation. In February 1998, he presented his discovery to all CIA employees in a large audience and ... not a single word leaked to the press. Sixteen months later, authoritative James Gillogli , a cryptanalyst from Los Angeles, using his Pentium II and the software he wrote revealed the same three sections. When news of Gillogly's success was leaked to the media, the CIA also declassified Stein's research data. Thus, 2 people appeared in the world, regardless of each other, who broke the code of the first three sections.


In the first section, K1, the Vigenere modified cipher is used. This is encryption by substitution - each letter corresponds to a different letter and can be “solved” only with the presence of regular letters of the alphabet on the right side. The key words that helped determine the substitution are KRYPTOS and PALIMPSEST. And the erroneous word in this case - IQLUSION may be the key to K4 disclosure.

K2, like the first section, is encrypted using the letters on the right. The only trick Sanborn used was to squeeze the X symbol between some sentences, which makes the opening process more difficult because of the need to be aware of the “extra character”. The key words here are KRYPTOS and ABSCISSA, and the error word is UNDERGRUUND.

Another cryptographic technique was applied in K3, the third section is transposition. All symbols are connected and can only be deciphered by the discovery of complex matrices and mathematical methods describing their position. There is all the same erroneous keyword - DESPARATLY, and the last sentence CAN YOU SEE ANYTHING? closed in the semantic brackets with the symbols X and Q.

Sanborn initially made the fourth section, K4, much more resistant to cracking. The whole sentence of K3 hints that the text of K4 is not standard English (if at all English) and will require a second level of cryptanalysis. Erroneous words may be the key to uncovering a section, but most likely, to uncover the fourth section, you will have to take into account other “anchors” of the installation — Morse code on one of the stones, a compass, and perhaps even a small fountain.

To believe that the decision of the first three sections would lead to a rapid disclosure of the fourth is fundamentally wrong, and all those who tried their luck at the copper plate quickly became convinced of this. Partial solutions only confused common secret and intrigue.

K1 is a text written by Sanborn himself: “ Between subtle shading and iqlusion. ” In this case, the word iqlusion is an intentional mistake, and the whole section is translated into Russian as: “There is a nuance between blackout and no light illusions.
K2 is the text of telegraph transmission, in which there are coordinates, and data on a magnetic field, transmission of information. The points of coordinates lead to the place a few hundred steps from the place of installation - there is nothing interesting there. Her decoded text:

IT WAS TOTALLY INVISIBLE. HOW'S THAT POSSIBLE? THEY USED THE EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD. X THE INFORMATION WAS GATHERED AND TRANSMITTED UNDERGRUUND TO AN UNKNOWN LOCATION. X DOES LANGLEY KNOW ABOUT THIS? THEY SHOULD. IT'S 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 ID BY ROWS.

K3 paraphrases a record from the diary of anthropologist Howard Carter, who in 1992 opened the tomb of Emperor Tutankhamen, ending with the words “ Can you see anything ?” When Gilogli managed to open this section, he said that he experienced the same joy and excitement that was and at Carter. In a sense, this quotation is a great phrase that metaphorically describes the work of a cryptographer, and possibly the entire CIA.

The 97 characters of the last part, K4, still store their cipher. K4 has become for many a kind of "Everest code." Both Scheidt and Sanborn confirm the fact that they made every effort to make the last part the most serious obstacle. Already there are many theories about how to break its code. Do I need access to sculpture or enough letters? What role does morse code play on one of the stones? Every detail, every little aspect of the installation during these two decades was screwed up, examined, sometimes licked with microscopes and loupes. Many reach the brink of madness in a vain attempt to decipher the last part - a businessman from Michigan sold his software business only to devote time to the cipher. 1300 people from a fanatical group on Yahoo! they tried to advance the work of the cipher with a collective mind, even one step forward, going through all sorts of options, from complex mathematics to astrology. Randy Thompson, another Kryptos fan who created and maintains one of the most informative sites on this topic, spent three years decrypting K4. As he himself believes, he came very close to solving the problem: “It can happen tomorrow, and maybe take the rest of my life.”

What makes the attempt even more difficult is the fact that the puzzle maker is still alive and, at least in theory, a potential source of information. For nearly two decades, the Kryptos community has played with Sanborn on the so-called “God’s Way,” when any word spoken by James is literally scanned for clues.

“In my intent there is no deliberate disinformation,” says Sanborn: “I am a benevolent cryptanalyst.” However, people continue to write, call, and sometimes even come to see James. Many of them are no longer amused by the fact that Sanborn is the only person who knows the secret.

Despite the fact that James Sanborn usually remains in the shadows, there are situations that he considers necessary to comment. So, for example, in 2005, he refuted Dan Brown’s “theory”, which states that the letters WW from section K3 can be flipped to MM, meaning “Mary Magdalena”.

But this speculation does not end there. The official story says that the only person with whom Sanborn shared the text of K4 is the then director of the CIA - William Webster (William Webster). By virtue of this theory, the fact that the decrypted text of K3 contains the words "Who knows the exact location only WW" also says. In 2005, after the story with Brown, Sanborn confirmed that these letters refer to Webster, not Mary Magdalene. And in 1999, Webster himself told the New York Times newspaper that the decision was "equally obvious and philosophical."

However, Sanborn himself says that “he deceived them all and no one has a complete answer.” In this case, even Webster does not know the truth?

“No,” says the author. He took all the necessary measures to ensure that one simple fact - even after his death there will not be a single person who knows the very truth. To all this, James adds that even he does not already know the complete solution.

If someone succeeds in breaking the last cipher, the hunt for the “absolute truth” of Kryptos will not end there. “A mystery can be much more than what you can see with your eyes,” says Scheidt: “just because you managed to break a part of it, you won’t be able to find an answer.” Then the logical question is: is there a “answer” in principle? Both Sanborn and Scheidt insist on what it is - however, they will be equally happy if no one ever finds it. As the author says: “When a piece of art loses its secret, it loses everything.”

Based on Wired