I just posted a huge updated version of one section of my Kryptos site this evening, focusing on all of sculptor Jim Sanborn's work. I've got info on over 100 different pieces of artwork, ranging over nearly 30 years of his career (so far).

My efforts have been paying off, too, such as with the KGB document that was found in the Smithsonian archives, plus learning about extra "Covert Operations fragments" tucked into private collections and galleries here and there, and also some intriguing things I've learned about three engraved compasses in three different installations of Sanborn's from around the DC area (one of which is Kryptos) that are all pointing in distinctly non-north directions (hmm, maybe they triangulate on something?).

He's also got a new show opening in November called "Atomic Time - Pure Science and Seduction" about the origin of the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Supposedly it's going to be quite controversial, as some of it will cover the related ethical dilemmas, and will be skating the edge of what is and isn't allowed to be revealed in terms of classified information. I've obtained some of the advance press images of the as-yet-unopened show, and you can see those as well at the new Sanborn page by clicking on the link below.

I'd also like to ask for help on something, regarding the Kryptos research. Kryptos is actually a multi-piece set, with different parts scattered around CIA Headquarters, and I've learned that there's a brief glimpse of a couple of them in a Will Smith movie, "Enemy of the State", during an overhead shot of CIA Headquarters at one point. Does anyone reading this happen to know where I could get a still of that scene?

Thanks much,

Elonka :)

Photographer/Artist James Sanborn

] 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

] Most of the documents presented in this archive were
] discovered and secured by a known soviet dissident,
] Vladimir Bukovsky (Cambridge, England) back in Russia
] in 1992.

One of the other members of my Kryptos brainstorming group discovered this webpage. It has PDFs of several KGB documents about dissident Sakharov, including a PDF of the same document that I found in the Sanborn folders of the Smithsonian Archive!

It's not clear whether my copy was obtained from the same dissident who got these copies, or whether they were two copies made on different days by two different people. But the archive is awesome, because it shows several different KGB documents, in their entirety, and in sequence. There are also other sections of the site which cover documents on other topics. If you want to see more KGB stuff, this is the place to go!

More background info on my Kryptos group, the KGB document that I found, and the Cyrillic Projector's code, are here:
http://www.elonka.com/kryptos/cyrillic.html

Elonka :)

More KGB documents about Sakharov

] Utilities Solve Everything. Just Producing Some Easy
] EnKryption.

Nice little straightforward puzzle that uses steganography. Good for a quickie brain stretch.

Steganography Puzzle

Currently one of the angles that we're looking at on Kryptos, is palindromes. This is because of an unusually large number of doubled letters both in the ciphertext and involved in deliberate misspellings of other words (underground : undergruund, illusion : iqlusion), and because there are some other related pieces by Sanborn that involve Morse code palindromes (such as a line with some leading dots and the word "invisible").

e e e e e e invisible:
. . . . . . .. -. ...- .. ... .. -... .-.. .

reverse the line: . ..-. ...- .. ... .. -... .- .. . . . . . .

Keep the spacing the same, and it's close but not intelligible: "efvisibai e e e e e e ". But change the spacing, and it comes back to the word "e invisible e e e e e":

. .. -. ...- .. ... .. -... .-.. . . . . . .

Palindrome Collection

As part of my research into Kryptos and the other works of its sculptor, James Sanborn, I have been having art galleries all over the country send me copies of their files, with information that I can add to my James Sanborn webpage (http://www.elonka.com/kryptos/sanborn.html).

A few weeks ago, I received a couple envelopes with a complete set of copies of the files from a section of the Smithsonian Archive. These were from a series of "Jim Sanborn" folders, which had been received from one of his prior agents, the Nancy Drysdale Art Gallery.

As I dug through the files, I found a lot of the usual stuff: price lists, articles, pictures, exhibition catalogs and whatnot, but then ran across something that I *wasn't* expecting to see: A classified KGB document!

It appears to be a document from 1982, about the Soviet dissident Sakharov. There was no explanation as to why the document was in those art gallery files. My speculation is that perhaps Sanborn received some KGB documents from the CIA when he was doing work there, and he gave them to his agent to have translated. Perhaps some extra copies of the document got lost in the paper shuffle somewhere, and when they resurfaced, they were identified as, "Oh yeah, that's for Sanborn, put it in his file" and then they were forgotten?

My favorite theory is that the cyrillic from the KGB document may give a clue to the plaintext of Sanborn's encrypted Cyrillic Projector. Especially because that ciphertext is also on Sanborn's Antipodes sculpture, and Sanborn was quoted as saying that the cyrillic side was about "KGB Operations".

I also have to admit that I was amused by the formal language of the KGB document. For example, it ends with a final paragraph which reads, "As a result of measures taken, the hostile plans of the adversary have been foiled." So now I and my friends are using that line in daily speech. Like if we go to a restaurant and argue about what to get on the menu, someone will call out, "The hostile plans of the adversary have been foiled!" :)

Enjoy,

Elonka :)

KGB Document in the Sanborn Files

Update: Various photographers (some who wish to remain anonymous) have been sending me pictures of the Antipodes sculpture at the Hirshhorn.

For those who have been following the story in my blog, this sculpture was particularly intriguing because it appeared to have the complete text of the Kryptos sculpture upon it, *and* the complete text of the Cyrillic Projector, and an additional 20% or so of other ciphertext in both languages.

It was my hope that perhaps there was extra text on the English side which would shed a clue towards cracking Kryptos. As it turned out, there *is* some additional ciphertext on the Cyrillic side, which does not appear anywhere on the Cyrillic Projector. On the English side though, it is just a mix and repeat of the code sections that are already on the Kryptos sculpture.

It's still useful though, because it is reassuring to see that Part IV is exactly the same length on Antipodes, as it is on Kryptos. There'd been some speculation that Kryptos part IV might only be the first part of a lengthier code, with the rest of the ciphertext "sucked into the whirlpool", but Antipodes seems to show that this is not the case.

Pics are now online, along with some additional info about the sculpture. Big hugs and thanks to all you anonymous photographers out there! :)

Sanborn's Antipodes Sculpture

] The government revealed last month that Reid, who is
] serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to trying
] to blow up an airliner with explosives concealed in his
] shoes, wrote a letter to Moussaoui. The contents of that
] letter were not revealed, but a source familiar with the
] case said it was an offer to testify during Moussaoui's
] trial.
 . . .
] The judge said Moussaoui "disputes an apparent
] determination by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that
] a recent letter from Mr. Moussaoui to Mr. Reid may
] contain embedded or 'coded' messages, and requests a copy
] of the report supporting the FBI's finding."

I'd be interested in seeing that report too. For now it smells suspiciously like, "we'll say there's a code even if we don't know there'a code, just because there *might* be a code," like all those steganography rumors.

For the record, I do support the idea that all communications between imprisoned terrorists should be screened, with the exception of attorney-client communications. I just hate the "maybe there's a code!" rumors when they're not based on anything other than paranoia.

Al Qaeda's Moussaoui & Reid corresponding in code?

] Fadia says there have been unconfirmed reports that
] intelligence agencies had recruited cyber saboteurs from
] the annual DEFCON hackers conference in Las Vegas.
]
] Fadia says he has worked for a non-Indian intelligence
] agency, helping to break algorithms used to encrypt data
] suspected to belong to a terrorist group. The data was
] hidden in an image using steganography and encrypted
] three times using three customised algorithms.

Oh?

] But Fadia does not impress everyone, particularly
] hardcore security and cryptography enthusiasts. Some
] seasoned techies in India dismiss him as just another
] fad.

I'd be very interested to learn what this "non-India intelligence agency" is, since this is the first I've heard of this "data suspected to belong to a terrorist group". Which group? What data? Which agency? Or did this Fadia guy just come up with a line that sounded good on his resume, but without anything to back it up?

Rumors of Steganography from an India Investigator

] Secondly there is the Tux JPEG. Starting at offset 0x1080
] in the game save is a JPEG image. This is obvious from
] the text JFIF which is present in all JPEG headers. If
] you extract out this block, you get a nice little picture
] of Tux. Seems like a harmless little addition by a linux
] fanatic. It is typical of linuxheads to stick stuff like
] this everywhere. In reality, the real hack is encrypted
] and stored in this image. The practice of storing data in
] images is known as steganography. Perhaps this doesn't
] count, as it stores the data in the header and not in the
] actual image data. It's still rather devious.

Cute. :)

Xbox hack steganographically hidden in Linux penguin