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Solution to CIA’s Kryptos sculpture is found in Smithsonian vault

nytimes.com

1–10 of 146 posts

Re: Solution to CIA’s Kryptos sculpture is found in Smithsonian vault

#3
>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...

Re: Solution to CIA’s Kryptos sculpture is found in Smithsonian vault

#4
post #2

This is about the Kryptos cypher, it should be in the submission's title, cause people here know what it is mostly.

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

Re: Solution to CIA’s Kryptos sculpture is found in Smithsonian vault

#7
post #2

This is about the Kryptos cypher, it should be in the submission's title, cause people here know what it is mostly.

Alt title from NYT header: Solution to CIA’s Kryptos Sculpture Is Found in Smithsonian Vault

not clickbaity enough. journos got mortgages to pay & the Sulzbergers need their dividends.

Re: Solution to CIA’s Kryptos sculpture is found in Smithsonian vault

#8
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.

Re: Solution to CIA’s Kryptos sculpture is found in Smithsonian vault

#9
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.

Re: Solution to CIA’s Kryptos sculpture is found in Smithsonian vault

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alt title from NYT header: Solution to CIA’s Kryptos Sculpture Is Found in Smithsonian Vault

not clickbaity enough. journos got mortgages to pay & the Sulzbergers need their dividends.

Wrong kind of clickbait headline for HN though, probably more interesting that it's about the kryptos sculpture.
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