[HN Gopher] Solution to CIA's Kryptos sculpture is found in Smit...
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Solution to CIA's Kryptos sculpture is found in Smithsonian vault
Author : elahieh
Score : 94 points
Date : 2025-10-16 10:56 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| d--b wrote:
| This is about the Kryptos cypher, it should be in the
| submission's title, cause people here know what it is mostly.
| jrmg wrote:
| They 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
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Alt title from NYT header: Solution to CIA's Kryptos Sculpture
| Is Found in Smithsonian Vault
| ricksunny wrote:
| not clickbaity enough. journos got mortgages to pay & the
| Sulzbergers need their dividends.
| vintermann wrote:
| Wrong kind of clickbait headline for HN though, probably
| more interesting that it's about the kryptos sculpture.
| mNovak wrote:
| And frankly a Kryptos solution is much more interesting than
| some arbitrary CIA secret!
| dang wrote:
| Thanks, we've put the HMTL doc title up there now.
| mikequinlan wrote:
| >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-
| solut...
| ricksunny wrote:
| I 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.
| vintermann wrote:
| As 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 wrote:
| > "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."
| dang wrote:
| Recent and related:
|
| _The secret code behind the CIA 's Kryptos puzzle is up for
| sale_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44907366 - Aug 2025
| (53 comments)
| nosmokewhereiam wrote:
| "side-channel attack" and it was super effective!
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| auction the solution to pay off medical bills. truly an American
| artist of the time.
| tptacek wrote:
| He's 79 and covered by Medicare.
| irq wrote:
| Which will, at best, cover a portion of his medical bills.
| yndoendo wrote:
| There 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-
| diagno...
| tptacek wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| Where 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)
| tptacek wrote:
| This is literally in the guidelines.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| I found their aside relevant to my interests as a fellow
| HN reader. The guidelines also advise against
| fulminating; you made your point, and I think it's fair
| that theirs also stands.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > truly an American artist of the time.
|
| Indeed. Quote from the article (emphasis mine):
|
| "Mr. Sanborn acknowledged that keeping the secret could be a
| strain: His computer has been hacked repeatedly over the years,
| he said, and obsessive fans of the work have threatened him.
| _"I sleep with a shotgun,"_ he said. "
| janalsncm wrote:
| So 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 wrote:
| Do 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 wrote:
| At the state level, it's a method that is in bounds.
| tptacek wrote:
| I 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.
| HPsquared wrote:
| "What we think intelligence agencies do" vs "what
| intelligence agencies actually do"
| nocoiner wrote:
| Here, I'll give you this one for free: it's called tortious
| interference. As the name suggests, it's a tort, so you don't
| need to sign a contact to be liable.
| tptacek wrote:
| There would need to be (1) an existing valid contract, (2)
| knowledge by the defendants of it, (3) intentional and
| unjustified inducements by the defendants to _break_ it,
| followed by (4) an actual breach that (5) caused damages.
|
| Doesn't seem like that would fit here.
|
| This seems like more of an ethical dilemma than a legal one.
| Retric wrote:
| > There would need to be (1) an existing valid contract,
|
| Your (1) is false. You can damage a business relationship
| that doesn't involve a signed contract.
|
| "Tortious interference with business relationships occurs
| where the tortfeasor intentionally acts to prevent someone
| from _successfully establishing_ or maintaining business
| relationships with others."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference
| tptacek wrote:
| OK, but the interference still needs to be improper!
| do_not_redeem wrote:
| They aren't doing it with the intent to damage his
| business. They're just doing something they would have
| done anyway.
|
| You can't claim tortious interference just because
| someone throws a wrench in your business plans. Sanborn
| has about as much of a case as Microsoft has against
| Linus Torvalds for creating Linux and hurting their sales
| of Windows. (I'll give you this one for free: none.)
| rgovostes wrote:
| I thought that, in light of this comment
| 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 wrote:
| relevant to this discussion is an essay from James Mickens :
| 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.
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