] 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

] Deep within the cyber headquarters of the Lunctis Viribus
] Facility, the Cheif of Operations is debriefing her staff
] on a letter to the CIA intercepted by a field operative
] on location.
]
] "Rotvians," the chief somberly scrutinizes her men and
] women seated in front of a network of computer screens,
] "we are in possession of a document dated December 15,
] 1989 in which for sake of level security has been dubbed
] Non Mihi Solum. ROT's top field agent, code named Alpha
] Busillis, is uploading visuals from the site as we
] speak."
]
] Chief Dunin projects the decade-old Agency Letter on a
] massive screen, debriefing her team as they begin to take
] notes of the newly discovered material. "Your mission is
] to download the visuals from our secure network and
] interpret their meanings. This journey will be a
] difficult one, but I have utmost confidence in your
] specialized cryptanalysis training. For the next several
] weeks you will work this code, you will eat and sleep
] this code with nothing but Non Mihi Solum on your minds."

LOL! One of the members of my Kryptos group put together a very creative website which collates a lot of information about Kryptos, but also puts much of it into a fictional "wrapper" with a "Chief Dunin" who debriefs a strike team with info about Kryptos. I'm not sure whether to be flattered or horrified. ;) If nothing else though, I'm impressed with the sheer amount of work that went into it.

There are also some very snazzy Flash graphics. I may have to swipe some of it for my next Kryptos talk!

Kryptos - The Fictional Debriefing

] The National Security Agency's Center for
] Cryptologic History (CCH) preserves and advances
] understanding of cryptologic history for NSA, the United
] States Intelligence Community, the Department of Defense,
] other government agencies, academia, and the general
] public. CCH provides objective, meaningful historical
] support to NSA leadership and the workforce to enhance
] decision-making, cryptologic knowledge, and esprit de
] corps. CCH also serves as NSA%u2019s historical outreach
] to academia and the general public. The CCH produces
] unclassified histories of cryptology that can be obtained
] and ordered.

Every two years, they also host a Cryptologic History Symposium in Maryland. I'm hoping to be one of the speakers this year.

NSA Center for Cryptologic History

Heh, I gave a talk last week on cryptography at the St. Louis "Gateway Open Technologies Expo." I was a keynote speaker there, along with Rick Berenstein, Chairman of Xandros.

Here's a review from the Missouri Linux Users' Group:

] About this time Elonka Dunin gave an excellent speech on
] classical cryptography, Kryptos, and the solving of
] Cyrillic Projector. If you missed this speech, you have
] my deepest sympathies. Her passion for solving
] inscrutable puzzles infected the crowd to the point where
] Christine finally had to force everyone out of the room
] to set up for Rick's presentation and Rick announced a
] new rule, he will never follow Elonka at a speaking
] engagement, ever!

LOL! I'm flattered. Berenstein was using the analogy that he felt like a guy with a gazoo who was scheduled to go on stage immediately after a rousing performance by the New York Philharmonic playing "Stars and Stripes Forever." ;)

To his credit though, I found Berenstein to be a charming and intelligent man who is a very entertaining speaker, himself. He had many of his own stories, such as the one about how he helped with getting a green card for Linus Torvalds. And Berenstein's talk on Xandros was interesting and informative. I've even now got a fresh new Xandros Linux partition on my laptop. :)

Kryptos & the St. Louis GOTexpo

] The bill has been finalised for DEFCON, the largest
] hacker gathering in the world, which kicks off this
] weekend. In between frightening the locals, strong-arming
] the one-arm bandits and defacing each other's websites
] conference delegates can look forward to an interesting
] array of talks.
]
] Highlights include a session on quantum hacking, a
] presentation about cracking the CIA's Kryptos
] Sculpture (an artwork containing encoded messages which
] lives in a courtyard at CIA Headquarters) and another on
] home-brew mind machines (is Professor Charles Xavier in
] attendance?).

Whoo, my Kryptos talk is listed as one of the highlights of Def Con? I am astonishingly flattered. :)

The Register: Vegas braces for DEFCON

] Kryptos and the Cracking of the Cyrillic Projector Cipher

Schedule's up! I'm currently scheduled to speak at Noon on Sunday, August 1st, 2004.

Defcon 12 Schedule - Elonka's Talk

Whoo! I just got word that I've been accepted as one of the official speakers for this year's Def Con. :)

(for those who don't know what Def Con is, it's a huge hacker/technology convention in Las Vegas that draws thousands of attendees from around the world)

When I show up on the schedule, I'll meme it. As a sneak peek for the Memestreams community though, here's the abstract of the talk, which will be an updated version of what I presented at PhreakNIC. (thanks go to those that helped me with the wording!):

Kryptos and the Cracking of the Cyrillic Projector Cipher
----------------------------------------------------------------
In a courtyard at CIA Headquarters stands an encrypted sculpture called Kryptos. Its thousands of characters contain encoded messages, three of which have been solved. The fourth part, 97 or 98 characters at the very bottom, have withstood cryptanalysis for over a decade. The artist who created Kryptos, James Sanborn, has also created other encrypted sculptures such as the decade-old Cyrillic Projector, which was cracked last September by an international team led by Elonka Dunin. This talk is intended for a general audience with beginning to intermediate cryptographic experience. Elonka will go over how the code was cracked, and the current state of knowledge about the Kryptos sculpture, its own encrypted messages, and its mysterious CIA surroundings.

Elonka at Def Con

] Steganography talk by Elonka Dunin (with focus on whether
] terrorists are using steganographic techniques)

I always get a kick out of seeing a link to one of my websites on a college syllabus. :) This one has two: One to my steganography talk, and one to my list of Famous Unsolved Codes.

Colgate University Syllabus: Steganography

] Frustrated after months of trying to solve Kryptos.................

Heh. This is the page of one of the other cryptographers who's working on Kryptos. He created a 3D model of the sculpture, and then imported it into a Half-Life engine so that he could take a crowbar to it. Scroll down to the bottom to see the screenshots. I kinda sympathize.... ;)

Kryptos and crowbars

] This rule amends the Export Administration Regulations
] (EAR) to allow the export and reexport of any encryption
] commodity or software to individuals, commercial firms,
] and other non-government end-users in all destinations.
] It also allows exports and reexports of retail encryption
] commodities and software to all end-users in all
] destinations. Post-export reporting requirements are
] streamlined, and changes are made to reflect amendments
] to the Wassenaar Arrangement. This rule implements the
] encryption policy announced by the White House on
] September 16 [1999] and will simplify U.S. encryption export
] rules. Restrictions on terrorist supporting states (Cuba,
] Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan or Syria), their
] nationals and other sanctioned entities are not changed
] by this rule.

January 2000 Encryption Export Regulations