A cryptic puzzle known as the Kryptos, located outside the CIA's headquarters, is testing the world's finest code crackers.
There is at least one secret that remains stubbornly safe in the leak-plagued global superpower. Indeed, the enigma stares the spies of the Central Intelligence Agency in the face each day.
Twenty years after it was unveiled in the main courtyard of the CIA headquarters in the USA, a sculpture of curving copper panels still contains an encrypted message hidden in a bewildering jumble of 1,800 characters.
The final mystery of Kryptos – it means "hidden" in Greek – is known as the "Everest of codes" among the thousands of cryptographers who are obsessed with deciphering it. It has even featured on the cover of The Da Vinci Code, the blockbuster Dan Brown novel.
Three passages were unravelled in 1999. But the fourth and toughest remains defiantly obscure, to the surprise of nobody more than Jim Sanborn, the sculptor who created the enduring puzzle.
And Mr Sanborn, who was an encryption neophyte when he was first commissioned by the CIA, has now
offered a clue to Kryptos enthusiasts by divulging six of the 97 letters in that last phrase.
offered a clue to Kryptos enthusiasts by divulging six of the 97 letters in that last phrase.
On the sculpture, they read NYPVTT. Decoded, they say BERLIN, he disclosed.
The revelation sparked a surge of activity among the Kryptos community – the vast majority of whom have only seen the subject of their fixation in photographs as the CIA nerve centre in Langley, Virginia, is off-limits to the general public.
But for now, despite the best efforts of codebreakers and their computers algorithms, the cipher that will identify the other 91 characters in the correct order has not been cracked.
"I never thought that it would take this long," said Mr Sanborn. "I have tried to narrow the options and offer the Kryptos community some reward for all their attention. There are people out there who have come close to wrecking their lives and careers as a result of their obsession with this."
A website set up Mr Sanborn to field enquiries for aspiring Kryptos code-crackers received a flood of suggestions after he revealed the clue. And Elonka Dunin, a computer game designer and America's best-known amateur codebreaker, said the Kryptos world was buzzing after the Berlin clue was offered.
"It's hugely energised the community," said Miss Dunin, who runs a Kryptos online clearing house and inspired the character of a CIA analyst called Nola Kaye – an enhanced anagram of her first name – in The Lost Symbol, Mr Brown's latest novel.
"There has been a lot of activity online and we've organised conference calls so that we can brainstorm about this new development."
Mr Sanborn had always said he saved the most cryptic for last. And Miss Dunin, who unlike most fellow enthusiasts has seen and touched the Holy Grail of their world when she gave a talk at the CIA, says the fourth phrase is also tough because, at 97 characters, it is relatively short and hence gives codebreakers less material to sift for patterns and key words.
Mr Sanborn was tutored in the secrets of code-writing by Ed Scheidt, then chairman of the CIA's Cryptographic Centre. Each encryption uses different system, ciphers and keywords in some multiple layers of code, with deliberate misspellings thrown in for good measure.
He has never shared the codes and hence answers, although he says that both Mr Scheidt and William Webster, the former CIA chief, have some the keys – "but not the key" – to the mystery.
In 1999, Jim Gillogly, a computer scientist from California, was the first to announce a solution of the first three parts, although the CIA subsequently said that one of its analysts had solved the same passages a year, using pencil and paper methods.
The first phrase was poetic, the second includes the compass positions of CIA headquarters and a reference to WW (Mr Webster) and the third paraphrases the account of Howard Carter, the Egyptologist, as he made his way into Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922.
The main sculpture, with its array of letters punched through the copper panels, sits in front of the cafeteria in the courtyard is between the original and new headquarters buildings. The grounds also include slabs of granite with morse code messages and an engraved compass that are thought to hold clues to the solution.
It is hardly surprising that some of the CIA's best and brightest are among those who are set on cracking the puzzle that challenges them so obviously.
"This piece of art reminds me every day that there are still many mysteries out there that remain unsolved and that one person has the capability to change that in a single moment," said a female CIA officer who has spent several years trying to decode the last part of the sculpture.
And another CIA officer, whose name was also withheld for security reasons, said: "Besides the mystery of the puzzle itself, the shape and composition add to the complexity of the sculpture."
Mr Sanborn's success in masking the message has proved a mixed blessing – earning him kudos but also critics and stalkers.
"People have come to my home and studio and I've been threatened a few times," he said. "I suppose anyone who holds a secret that others want can expect to encounter resentment. The Kryptos mind is unpredictable."
Some have even claimed that they do not believe there is even a fourth passage – that it is a fiendish plot – that does not make sense. But Mr Sanborn and his mentor Mr Scheidt have both insisted that the answer makes sense in English and can be deciphered.
Any public utterance by Mr Sanborn is desperately parsed for clues and meaning by the Kryptos world, even though some suspect that he is indulging in the dark espionage arts of deception as much as offering tantalising glimpses of enlightenment.
And he surprisingly is scathing about the added attention brought by the involvement of Mr Brown. "His intervention is as welcome as a dose of polonium 210 for me," he said, referring to the radioactive isotope that killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.
"I am an artist who produces science-based work and Brown just sucked Kryptos into a world full of pseudo science."
A healthy 65-year-old, he has nonetheless taken steps to ensure that he does not take the secret to his grave, leaving instructions for revealing the keys to the code – if not the solution itself – in the event of his death.
But he will not be offering further clues any time soon to this 20-year-old Mission Impossible.
"It's going to be another decade before I give anything else out,"
Read more
The revelation sparked a surge of activity among the Kryptos community – the vast majority of whom have only seen the subject of their fixation in photographs as the CIA nerve centre in Langley, Virginia, is off-limits to the general public.
But for now, despite the best efforts of codebreakers and their computers algorithms, the cipher that will identify the other 91 characters in the correct order has not been cracked.
"I never thought that it would take this long," said Mr Sanborn. "I have tried to narrow the options and offer the Kryptos community some reward for all their attention. There are people out there who have come close to wrecking their lives and careers as a result of their obsession with this."
A website set up Mr Sanborn to field enquiries for aspiring Kryptos code-crackers received a flood of suggestions after he revealed the clue. And Elonka Dunin, a computer game designer and America's best-known amateur codebreaker, said the Kryptos world was buzzing after the Berlin clue was offered.
"It's hugely energised the community," said Miss Dunin, who runs a Kryptos online clearing house and inspired the character of a CIA analyst called Nola Kaye – an enhanced anagram of her first name – in The Lost Symbol, Mr Brown's latest novel.
"There has been a lot of activity online and we've organised conference calls so that we can brainstorm about this new development."
Mr Sanborn had always said he saved the most cryptic for last. And Miss Dunin, who unlike most fellow enthusiasts has seen and touched the Holy Grail of their world when she gave a talk at the CIA, says the fourth phrase is also tough because, at 97 characters, it is relatively short and hence gives codebreakers less material to sift for patterns and key words.
Mr Sanborn was tutored in the secrets of code-writing by Ed Scheidt, then chairman of the CIA's Cryptographic Centre. Each encryption uses different system, ciphers and keywords in some multiple layers of code, with deliberate misspellings thrown in for good measure.
He has never shared the codes and hence answers, although he says that both Mr Scheidt and William Webster, the former CIA chief, have some the keys – "but not the key" – to the mystery.
In 1999, Jim Gillogly, a computer scientist from California, was the first to announce a solution of the first three parts, although the CIA subsequently said that one of its analysts had solved the same passages a year, using pencil and paper methods.
The first phrase was poetic, the second includes the compass positions of CIA headquarters and a reference to WW (Mr Webster) and the third paraphrases the account of Howard Carter, the Egyptologist, as he made his way into Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922.
The main sculpture, with its array of letters punched through the copper panels, sits in front of the cafeteria in the courtyard is between the original and new headquarters buildings. The grounds also include slabs of granite with morse code messages and an engraved compass that are thought to hold clues to the solution.
It is hardly surprising that some of the CIA's best and brightest are among those who are set on cracking the puzzle that challenges them so obviously.
"This piece of art reminds me every day that there are still many mysteries out there that remain unsolved and that one person has the capability to change that in a single moment," said a female CIA officer who has spent several years trying to decode the last part of the sculpture.
And another CIA officer, whose name was also withheld for security reasons, said: "Besides the mystery of the puzzle itself, the shape and composition add to the complexity of the sculpture."
Mr Sanborn's success in masking the message has proved a mixed blessing – earning him kudos but also critics and stalkers.
"People have come to my home and studio and I've been threatened a few times," he said. "I suppose anyone who holds a secret that others want can expect to encounter resentment. The Kryptos mind is unpredictable."
Some have even claimed that they do not believe there is even a fourth passage – that it is a fiendish plot – that does not make sense. But Mr Sanborn and his mentor Mr Scheidt have both insisted that the answer makes sense in English and can be deciphered.
Any public utterance by Mr Sanborn is desperately parsed for clues and meaning by the Kryptos world, even though some suspect that he is indulging in the dark espionage arts of deception as much as offering tantalising glimpses of enlightenment.
And he surprisingly is scathing about the added attention brought by the involvement of Mr Brown. "His intervention is as welcome as a dose of polonium 210 for me," he said, referring to the radioactive isotope that killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.
"I am an artist who produces science-based work and Brown just sucked Kryptos into a world full of pseudo science."
A healthy 65-year-old, he has nonetheless taken steps to ensure that he does not take the secret to his grave, leaving instructions for revealing the keys to the code – if not the solution itself – in the event of his death.
But he will not be offering further clues any time soon to this 20-year-old Mission Impossible.
"It's going to be another decade before I give anything else out,"
Read more
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