FOX News July 22, 2007 10 MB 4-minute segment on "Fox and Friends", about the upcoming NOVAscienceNOW show

Here's an archive of my appearance on FOX News this morning.

It's such a surreal experience, being interviewed remotely on live TV. The show was broadcast from New York, but I was in St. Louis. They'd rented out a local PBS studio in downtown St. Louis, to do the live feed. I was a "talking head."

So there I am in the St. Louis studio, at 6:45 a.m. on a Sunday morning, trying to look perky even though I'd been up since 3:30 a.m. to get ready. There were two technicians in the studio, wearing headsets and outside of my vision. So I'm perched on a stool, looking into a blank camera, listening to the audio feed via an earplug. I had no visual feedback whatsoever as to whether or not I was on the air -- no red light, no monitor. For a sense of what this feels like, go sit in front a blank wall, stare at it, and try to keep your face smiling and engaged, even though you have no idea of whether or not you're even being looked at.

I also had some panic before the segment... I was supposed to meet with a makeup artist at 4:30 who was going to do my hair and makeup, but they were a no-show. So I rummaged for some makeup from my purse, brushed my hair, and went on camera "as-is". So if I look a bit windswept, well, now you know why. ;)

Looking forward to the actual Kryptos segment on PBS NOVAscienceNOW this Tuesday...

Elonka :)

Elonka on 'Fox and Friends', July 22, 2007

A local expert on puzzles was one of the first to try and crack that code.
Elonka Dunin, a cryptologist of St. Charles says she is happy for the man who did crack the code.

Here's the webpage at St. Louis KMOV, with a brief article and video stream on last night's 6 p.m. report, where I'm one of the "talking heads" about the Smithy Code.

I noticed that several of the reporters I talked to (including the KMOV interviewer) would ask me leading questions like, "Are you angry that Tench did it first?" "Are you disappointed?" "Are you frustrated?" "Are you annoyed?". To which I'd usually counter with, "No, I'm happy for him that he got it, though I will point out that the judge gave him lots of hints, and I think that my group (the Kryptos Group) would've had it within a day anyway -- we were already working on the Fibonacci angle."

But of course, the news agencies use sound bytes, and so we end up with "Elonka Dunin is happy for him." ;) Overall though, the segment was a good one. The reporter asked good questions, the interview area was very relaxed and comfortable (gone are the days of bright lights making the interviewees sweat -- these days the cameras seem to work just fine with natural light), and they got a video stream up on their website right away!

Elonka :)

(note: Free registration may be required to see this page)

KMOV.com - 'Local cryptologist one of first to try to crack code in Da Vinci ruling'

] The novel The Da Vinci Code is renewing interest in
] solving the puzzle of a cryptographic sculpture located
] at CIA headquarters. Only three people know the solution,
] but the sculptor now says two of them only think they
] know it.

Big front-page top-link article on Kryptos at Wired. Coolness. :)

I've been working with the reporter on this article for awhile now, and she really did her homework. I helped her get in touch with both Jim Sanborn and Ed Scheidt for interviews, and we tried really hard to get interviews with William Webster, Jim Gillogly, and even Dan Brown. I'm also pleased that the reporter posted an actual transcript of her Sanborn interview, since that gives us more to work with on analyzing his comments!

- Elonka :)

Wired News - New Sanborn Interview

A new page for my ever-growing Kryptos website . . .

Kryptos FAQ

] The Kryptos sculpture was commissioned for the CIA's New
] Headquarters Building in 1988, and dedicated in 1990. A
] common misconception is that it is composed only of the
] one "wavy screen" piece -- in actuality there are several
] pieces, and sculptor Sanborn describes them as being in
] three main sections: Courtyard Plaza (which includes the
] sculpture), Courtyard Lawn, and Entrance.

This is a webpage I've created which displays some aerial views of CIA Headquarters, in order to show the locations of the different Kryptos pieces around the CIA "campus".

The page is also a small knowledge-base of other bits and pieces that have emerged about Kryptos, including information about the related morse code messages, and the mysterious nearby engraved compass, along with links to info about two other compasses that were also created by Sanborn in the DC area. None of which, interestingly enough, seem to point north . . .

Elonka :)

Kryptos - The Bird's Eye View

] Elonka's Kryptos Page
] Kryptos is a sculpture located on the grounds of CIA
] Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. ...

Whoohoo! My Kryptos webpage is now the #1 link on Google's search for listings on "kryptos". I'm even above the CIA's listing!

(Elonka basks in her "I feel lucky!" status -- at least for the nanosecond . . .)

Google Search: kryptos

Elonka,

The CIA has a Family Day every year or three. Family can't go absolutely anywhere, and do absolutely anything, but a pre-planned group from various families could meet at Kryptos to get some of the answers (dimensions, angles, recording things, even sketching the layout) that are wanted. In fact, one person acting alone but allowed in the compound could get some of the info you want -- but the way your listing is now, I wouldn't know where to start. What is most important?

Those of you who have been working this for up to 18 years have a list in your head of what is needed most, or first, or most desperately. You know, something like the answer to question Z won't be very helpful unless we have A, B, and C first. To us new kids, all the questions have equal importance.

=============
I can address one question, partially.

"For example, we have heard that during installation, there were x-rays done of the various granite slabs. Would it be possible to see those reports?"

I have a particle of information, though it is not the entire answer you are looking for. Whether it was art, or a telephone poll, or a new desk, it would have been X-rayed ( probably other tests, too) to make sure it contained nothing that would record, transmit, or reflect voice or image. Something similar is done to every thing -- every piece of furniture, even flowers for desks --for things that go into American Embassies in foreign countries. It is just standard procedure.

If you want that info from the CIA, I think you can get info on what the X-rays showed, using the Freedom of Information Act. I'm not sure, but I think so. The more specifically and narrowly you can ask for the information, the more likely you are to get it. Getting an exact copy of the X-rays (at the same level of detail) is somewhat unlikely.

Kryptos and the Cyrillic Projector Ciphers
Elonka Dunin
Video

For any who are interested in my Kryptos talks, this link has an MP4 video of my talk at the ShmooCon convention in early 2006. I found it interesting to watch again, as my talk continually evolves from year to year, as new information about Kryptos becomes available, so it was a nice refresher to see the way that the talk used to be in 2006. :) I also tailor the talks a bit depending on my audience, and so since this talk was in the Washington DC area, I threw in a bit more information and in-jokes for the DC crowd. The sound of the recording is a bit muffled in places, but overall it's pretty good coverage, and they did their best to move the camera back and forth from me to the slides.

Elonka :)

Kryptos talk at ShmooCon 2006

Oups! Fist Day on my blog!
These last days , I thought very much at Kryptos.
I begin the problem by the faults in I’Q’LUSION, UNDERGR’U’UND and DESP’A’RAT-LY. I think at code Caesar.

BCDFGHJK’L’MNPQRSTVWXZ
GHJKLMNP’Q’RSTVWXZBCDF

A ’E’ I ’O ’U Y
E ’A’ Y ’U’ O I

Don’t forget that Vigenere is French. Like me!

For the details of my decoding see my site:
http://groups.google.com/group/kryptos97solution

Chabrery.

I am new and not familiarized with this site.

Another interesting idea would be to encode and commemerate the discovery of cosmic bursts by the CIA's Vela satellites. This spectrum analysis intelligence had to be "decoded". It fits with the artists theme of decoding the mysteries of the universe. The Kryptos insricption might relate to the analysis or raw data reports from the Vela sattellites.

The CIA Discovers Gamma Rays from Outer Space! - In 1967, during the Johnson Administration, the United States entered a treaty that banned the testing of nuclear weapons in space. In order to verify that the terms of the treaty were being observed, in the late 1960s the CIA and other intelligence agencies arranged for the Air Force to launch the VELA series of surveillance satellites, which carried omni-directional detectors sensitive to pulses of gamma rays that would have been emitted in great numbers by any space-based tests of nuclear weapons. The VELA satellites never detected a nuclear explosion, or at least never detected one originating in our Solar System.

However, from the time when the first VELA probe was activated bursts of gamma rays were detected every few days. The intelligence analysts were baffled and suspected satellite malfunctions or some form of deliberate jamming that would hide real tests. Finally, with several satellites in orbit simultaneously it became possible to use the arrival time of the pulses at different locations to determine the direction of the source of the radiation. It was found that the bursts came from a number of directions outside the solar system. The existence of these bursts was kept as a closely guarded secret for several years. Finally, in 1973, a paper was published in Astrophysics Journal Letters describing the observation of gamma ray bursts, and the astrophysicists of the world were confronted with a new phenomenon, which, at the time of the 17th Texas Symposium of Relativistic Astrophysics has still not been adequately explained.