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<TITLE>Gillogly Cracks CIA Art</TITLE>
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16 June 1999
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<A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/06/biztech/articles/16code.html">http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/06/biztech/articles/16code.html</A>
June 16, 1999
C.I.A.'s Artistic Enigma Yields All but Final Clue
By JOHN MARKOFF
It has stood in a courtyard inside the Central Intelligence Agency for
almost a decade, a sculptural mystery inside an enigma.
But last week Jim Gillogly, a Southern California computer scientist, did
what has until now been done -- quietly, and incompletely -- only inside the
agency's halls.
He succeeded in breaking almost all of a cipher embedded in a sculpture
called Kryptos -- the Greek word for "hidden" -- that was dedicated at the
C.I.A. in October 1990.
Since then, the 865-character message etched into the sculpture by the
artist, Jim Sanborn, has defied all efforts to unravel its conundrum
completely. Even Gillogly acknowledges that he has deciphered only its first
768 characters. Still unbroken are the last 97 characters, apparently the
same section that has also stumped both the C.I.A. and the National Security
Agency.
Sanborn said this week that the sculpture contains a riddle within a riddle
-- one that will be solvable only after the four encrypted passages are
known. The complete answer was handed to William H. Webster, the Director of
Central Intelligence when the sculpture was completed, and has been held in
confidence by his successors.
The tantalizing clues uncovered last week are likely to rekindle interest in
a complete solution: The three sections include a poetic phrase, a reference
to a point near the C.I.A.'s headquarters in Langley, Va. (with the enticing
passage, "Who knows the exact location? Only WW"), and an excerpt from an
account of the opening of King Tut's tomb in 1922.
"I don't really have a good idea of what it might be," said Gillogly, a
53-year-old cryptographer at Mentat Inc., a Los Angeles software maker, who
started designing cryptograms with his brother as a child in an effort to
stump their father.
A computer hacker in the best sense of the word and a past president of the
American Cryptogram Association, Gillogly (pronounced gill-OH-glee) began
exploring the Kryptos message in 1992, but he abandoned it until nine days
ago, when he saw it briefly alluded to in an Internet discussion group.
This time he was armed with a better weapon than the pencil and paper he had
seven years ago: his home computer, a highly powered Pentium II. And the key
to solving the first three sections of the message proved to be a program
that Gillogly had written as part of his cryptographic passion.
The program, he said, is intended to help solve what he refers to as
classical cryptographic systems used by kings, armies and spies before World
War II.
Even with more computational power, he had to apply traditional
cryptographic methods, using his logical powers of deduction.
"There was a fair amount of skull sweat," he said. "You work on it and you
see something that is a little out of whack and you start pulling on it to
see what unravels."
When he contacted the C.I.A's press office last week, Gillogly learned that
he was not the first codebreaker to succeed at unraveling the first part of
the mystery.
In February, David Stein, who works for the agency as a physicist and senior
analyst, and not as a professional cryptographer, had quietly uncovered the
same three passages. Like Gillogly, he has been stumped by the final
section, although he believes that it will eventually be solved.
"The Kryptos puzzle is a layered puzzle," he said yesterday, "and we may
find that it has layers within layers within layers."
Stein sounded a bit miffed when he learned that Gillogly had used a computer
in his pursuit of the hidden codes.
"Kryptos was meant to be solved with pencil and paper," he said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Article
The Kryptos Code Unmasked
(June 16, 1999)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There were no written rules in this contest, Gillogly responded, adding:
"As far as I'm concerned a crack is where you find it. The choice of tool
isn't the important part, but rather the decisions about how to use the
tools."
For his part, Webster, the former Director, said yesterday that he had long
since forgotten the answer. "I have zero memory of this," he said. "It was
philosophical and obscure."
But he sided with Gillogly on using a computer. "Who set the rules here?" he
asked. "This is precisely what the agencies do when they try to break codes."
Sanborn, the artist, who has designed a number of sculptures that are
puzzles, has said he believes that the ultimate secret hidden in the text of
Kryptos will never be deciphered. It was designed by Edward M. Scheidt, a
former chairman of the C.I.A.'s Cryptographic Center.
That has not stopped either Gillogly or Stein from speculating on what the
full message may contain. And Gillogly has even contemplated exploring the
bag of tricks of some of the world's acknowledged past spy masters in search
of the complete solution.
"There're still those last few lines waiting to be decrypted," he wrote last
week in an Internet discussion group.
"I'll review the 'Mission Impossible' movie for tips on getting into the
vault, if all else fails."
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<A NAME="message">Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 07:44:17 -0700</A>
From: Jim Gillogly <jim@acm.org>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Gillogly Cracks CIA Art
John Young wrote:
> So, Jim, what was the message?
It's in the sidebar to the article. I must say this was the best
experience I've had working with a journalist -- he got everything
spot-on. Only the last Q was left off of one of the plaintexts.
I worked from an impressively clean transcription by Doug Gwyn,
which you can find at
<A HREF="http://www.und.nodak.edu/org/crypto/crypto/general.crypt.info/Kryptos/">http://www.und.nodak.edu/org/crypto/crypto/general.crypt.info/Kryptos/</A>
Here's what I broke (typos are cut into the copper):
1. Between subtle shading and the absence
of light lies the nuance of iqlusion.
Keys: KRYPTOS, PALIMPSEST.
2. 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.
Keys: KRYPTOS, ABSCISSA
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
Keys: three columnar transpositions.
Here are the last 97 characters, which I haven't broken:
OBKR
UOXOGHULBSOLIFBBWFLRVQQPRNGKSSO
TWTQSJQSSEKZZWATJKLUDIAWINFBNYP
VTTMZFPKWGDKZXTJCDIGKUHUAUEKCAR
I suspect it's running key, or combined polyalphabetic sub
and transposition, or perhaps autokey. The only likely
periodicity appears to be at period 25, but that may well
just be chance.
The lat-long in the second section are near Langley and McLean,
Virginia. Perhaps some cypherpunks with GPS receivers could
narrow it down a bit. ABC News thinks it's right at the spot
where the sculpture sits, but I'd find that surprising given
the text. The third section is adapted from Howard Carter's
first-person account of opening Tutankhamun's tomb, and the
response to the question was "Yes, wonderful things." Perhaps
that's a crib for the last section.
--
Jim Gillogly
26 Forelithe S.R. 1999, 14:29
12.19.6.5.1, 5 Imix 9 Zotz, Second Lord of Night
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