The reason the code's not broken - because the CIA don't need it broken. This is what happens when the CIA needs a code broken: http://xkcd.com/538/

What I can't crack is how this ended up in Wired magazine twice!

Oh god please make it stop.

Kryptos : Cryptography :: Astrology : Astronomy.

"Sanborn [the artist] named his proposal after the Greek word for hidden."

It's not Sanborn's fault, I know.

That's because CIA sucks at cryptanalysis. NSA on the other hand...

I've heard the NSA's got a computer or two that work reasonably well on stuff like this...

That's like saying the NSA's got a computer or two that would work reasonably well at solving the Saturday New York Times Crossword Puzzle. I'm sure they do.

If it used a one time pad properly, it's in theory uncrackable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_time_pad

If the key is truly random, never reused in whole or part, and kept secret, the one-time pad provides perfect secrecy

The idea of the project is that it's supposed to be crack-able. So a OTP is probably out. Otherwise K4 is just random noise and not an obscure puzzle.

Or if he made a mistake (because he has no idea what he is doing), it is uncrackable.

When I was a kid, I had this idea that I was excited about, that I'll write meaningless codes in pieces of paper and strategically place them to drive people who try to figure out crazy. People just didn't care.

Well, if Yahoo ever decides that a strategy for distracting Google is needed, we now know how. Plop one of these down out the front of Google in the middle of the night. By mid-afternoon the next day, the Googleplex will no longer be functioning :-)

http://xkcd.com/356/

The last part is probably a Tara Ploughman quote.

Maybe the entropy/ structure ratio for the last block of stuff is such that there are multiple valid looking decryptions?

I bet it's gibberish, like the artist was giving the spooks something to work on besides world domination once in a while.

The artist has done other sculptures that have been solved, and the first 3 parts have been solved. So I doubt it is gibberish.

If you are interested you might check out Elonka's website: http://elonka.com/kryptos/

She's given talks all over the country on Kryptos.

If anyone ever decides to make a list of the top 10 perfect examples for an HN article, put this on there.

Why? I don't think I learned anything from that article. Trying to decode an artists random encoding seems like a huge waste of time to me.

Of course. If it seems like a huge waste of time to you, then is must be the same for everyone else as well.

First, Sanborn didn't create a random encoding. He worked with a renowned CIA cryptologist to come up with this, so there's a rhyme and reason.

Second, it's the idea of it all, the effort it takes to break a code and figure out its innards. To me, that counts as one of the perfect examples of hackerdom.

I just don't see the use for it - presumably one could create a random number generator to generate all sorts of codes, and have all hackers be occupied indefinitely? There are so many open problems whose solution would actually increase the body of human knowledge.

Still, if you want to play, play. It probably is a good problem to practice cryptography with.