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 :)

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