Break the first two Kryptos Ciphertexts from the CIA Headquarters Building (Vigenère Ciphers)

#cryptology, #cryptography, #cryptanalysis
In this video, we present how to break two (K1 and K2) of four encrypted messages of the famous Kryptos sculpture, which is located at the CIA's headquarters building.
Kryptos was created by artist Jim Sanborn in 1990. Three of the four encrypted messages of the sculpture have been solved by Jim Gillogly. In parallel, NSA employees also solved the messages, but did not publish their findings (in that time). The fourth of the messages is still unbroken.
Here, we first give a short introduction of the messages. Also, we briefly introduce the Vigenère cipher and Autokey cipher.
After that, we create our own Vigenère ciphers in CrypTool 2. Finally, we use CrypTool 2's Vigenère analyzer to actually break the first two Kryptos ciphers.
You may download the latest version of CrypTool 2 from here: www.cryptool.org/en/ct2/downl...

[@accessgroup06]

Really Great work mate. Finally i got, what i needed. Cheers and thanks for the awesome videos.

[@LaboriousCretin]

It's going to sound crazy. But K0/LEX holds all the keys. All K0 meaning changes and all of K1-K5. Use all instructions on everything. Every letter in K0 gets substitution rule. As you learn the rules the text in K1-K5 have hidden rules to use on the K0 new text. Just warps my mind they could do this. Also to go along with the kryptos lex part. Hidden 5 headed hydra. 5 main layers and 5 sublayers and 5 layers of encryption. Some I'm left with how did they make this so good. T,Y rules, O,A substitution. Which the puzzle is full of. Keyed words and keywords and all the steps and rules within it. It's all about learning rules and steps. It even shows some of what was missed in Medusa Cyrillic projector. Though makes me wonder if he has 3 other titan pieces out there some place. That the key turns into text and the text decrypted some turns into instructions just shorts my mind. So much hidden in plain sight. K0 a nod to station X.

[@LaboriousCretin]

Extracting layrrs of meaning. WW2 has 2 sublayers under a larger umbrella and for allied side ( light ). Metaxis is ( start of WW2 ) meanings. " A state of being into both ficticious and real world at the same time. Also " in the state of in the middle. Betwixed, ( BETWEEN ). Palimpsest K1 check, WW2 layer check. Greek layer elements. Kryptos, LEX, Alexander, Mytaxis ( My tax is play ). Hydra ( goddess of dragons and the mother of Alexander Tiamat. Hydra radio station and camp X ). Alexander plats to Rosa Luxemburg " U Underground " SS layer and V-Day preparation spot for Churchill. Layer 5. Project overlord. Cipher and text codex a book of wisdom/knowledge. Alex Kenneth Alexander ( A LEX Kenneth Alexander checks ) Ghost stations. Y Stations, station X, U Underground stations, spy stations ( project gold and building a cryptographic tunnel ). Treasure, Tate, Tricycle, cross checks in double agents, XX Double cross WW2 layer. Gold beach D-Day layer. Spy and military layers. L class ships Lexington ( lady lex ) a side track artifacting from key ussage I think, but not sure yet ). SOS ( OSS Underground SS ). OSS part. P.O. rank. One huge part that throws everyone off is the lack of math or computers to do this. Morse and binary and knowledge enough to learn. They give directions, rules, laws, steps, keys, checks and cross checks, keywords, keyed words, formatting, ect..

[@DJDevon3]

Amazing after all that time the solution was that fast to crack in cryptool. Only a few seconds of vigenere hill climbing in cryptool. You said 3 of 4 were cracked so why only cover 2?

[@CryptographyForEverybody]

Hiho, Yes, the solver is really fast and powerful :-) Concerning K3: K3 is a transposition cipher and the idea of the video was to show how to break Vigenère ciphers with CT2. Also, it is not a standard columnar transposition, thus, not so easily breakable using our solvers. To break K3, have a look at: math.ucsd.edu/~crypto/Projects/KarlWang/index2.html

[@gamakris3238]

4th code - dr Livingston I presume

[@Amam-xu3xr]

K4 might be the very old crypt techniques

[@CryptographyForEverybody]

K4 may be any cipher 🙂. We just don‘t know it...

[@stefanmathys3272]

@@CryptographyForEverybody As Ed Scheidt said (the former director of the CIA Comms Dept. who helped Sanborn with the encryption methods for the Kryptos sculpture) in the case of Kryptos4 the "algorithm is the key", which means nothing less than to say that you must first figure out some possibly quirky way by which the initial PT was scrambled before it has undergone a second (traditional/established) encryption method (Vigenere, columnar or double transposition etc..). I believe that this is why no one has yet deciphered it. What is your take on this7Kryptos4?

[@CryptographyForEverybody]

Hello Stefan Mathys, Yes, I also read about the idea that the plaintext language has been changed prior to decryption. This has been done also priviously in history with different ciphers... -> With the Enigma, they replaced some parts of the plaintext language before encryption. For example they replaced CH by Q. -> Also, with some historical ciphers, they removed double letters, like NN, TT, etc. and replaced them with only a single one. Concerning K4, the assumptions are that the language was even more "destroyed/changed" before performing the encryption. Now, the problem is, that when we apply our usual language models and use our tools, they can not solve it since they would produce something more close to a "real language" instead of the changed one ... With Enigma (and our historical ciphers) we also adapted our language models to incorporate the changes they made I mentioned. We even use historical language models (i.e. 16th century German) to break original ciphertexts. NOW, without having the knowledge how the language has been changed, it is difficult or even impossible to create a suitable language model. So without knowing how the language of K4 "looks like" we do not know which models to apply -- if the language had been changed. Therefore, we have a lot of problems/open questions: 1) Which cipher or ciphers were used? 2) Which plaintext language was used? 3) Was the language altered to increase the difficulty for a cryptanalysis? 4) Did they (Sanborn and Scheidt) just made errors? My gueses for that: 1) Probably a hand cipher... maybe also one WW2 machine (but i don't think with high probability). Maybe a combination of different ciphers. 2) I highly assume English... but there is of course a chance it is a different language. 3) Could be... this would make it harder. Even when it is "only a simple cipher". 4) Could be... we know that there are errors (intended and not intended) in the first parts. But I think that Sanborn would have revealed that there are errors... as he did with previous messages I work from time to time on K4 and test some ideas that come into my mind... I assume that somewhere in the future, there will be the one genius who has a great idea which "easily" breaks the ciphertext. We saw that just a few weeks ago with Zodiac Z-340... the ciphertext is "quite easy" to decipher... the only problem was, that noone knew the used ciphers... I think same will happen here with K4. Maybe it also had been solved within NSA or CIA (already years ago) but they do not release it to keep the mysterium as well as allow many hobby- (and professional-) cryptanalyst to have some fun :-) Greetings, Nils

[@stefanmathys3272]

@@CryptographyForEverybody Hi Nils, thank you for your interesting and in-depth answer, I appreciate it. I can only confirm what you are saying about K4 after running all sorts of tests on the cipher. Here is my 5 cents of worth regarding your points: 1) I was looking into CIA hand ciphers used in the cold war, but none I've seen seems to fit with what we're presented with in K4. I still think - if any - then it will be a standard cipher method used along some initial PT scrambling, as Sanborn is not a cryptographer and I don't think he would have dug that far into past/historical ciphers. 2): it is English, as this was confirmed by Sanborn. So you can dismiss other plaintext languages. 3) Completely agree. I am quite sure the PT was initially altered in some way, and I suspect Sanborn used some form of autokey method to do so, because it was only with autokeying I could thus far map what we have of revealed PT ("EASTNORTHEAST" and "BERLINCLOCK") into a scrambled arrangement which I was then able to map to the CT doing a simple Vigenere using a short key...time will show! 4) Yes, agree. Errors would have been revealed. Although there are errors that might have been intentionally placed as some hint. For example in K1, the "q" of "iqlusion" should be a an"L". Also, one of the alphabets (the one starting with "NGHIJL..." in the right hand panel has an "L" too much. Also, in K2 in "UNDERGRUUND", the U should be an O, and it was not an error as far as I know. Finally, making my own point 5): I think Sanborn is toying a little with us. The solution is not down to solely applying brute force and standard cipher methods, but the element of creativity is in there as well. I think he wants us to "figure out" something. And I am sure that this has to do with the PT he revealed only recently: EASTNORTHEAST and "BERLINCLOCK". You see, if you plot a line on a map starting at the Set Theory clock, going through the location of the Clock of flowing time, you have a trajectory that is pretty much 22 degrees (EASTNORTHEAST), and moreover that trajectory passes exactly thru the third famous Berlin Clock at Alexanderplatz...so I think there is something to be discovered there!

[@jeoi]

Read Chapters 11-13 In The US Army Field Guide (Cryptography). This Will Explain The Transposition Route Cipher Used In Section 3. In Section 3 The Route Was (0362514) Which Is The Alphabetical Order Of The Keyword "KRYPTOS". They Used A Grid Of 7×48 And Transposed Collums In The Positional Order Of The Route. After The Chunks Are Transposed And Stacked, You Read The Grid Backwards To Reveal The "Slowly" Solution. However, The Cipher Has 336 Characters & The Solution Only Has 143 Including Punctuation "?". So It Is Highly Unlikely The NSA Revealed The True Method Since It Can Not Be Reproduced The Same Way They Claimed In 1998 In Classified Documents Now Declassified.

[@michaelblakearcenal9080]

how did k become 10?

[@CryptographyForEverybody]

Hi TheVoid, When converting letters to numbers, we start with A=0, then B=1, C=2,...,K=10, ..., Z=25 Greetings, Nils

[@michaelblakearcenal9080]

@@CryptographyForEverybody thanks very much I understand it clearly

[@CryptographyForEverybody]

@@michaelblakearcenal9080 You are welcome :-)

[@jeoi]

The Transposition Route Used In Section 3 Is: 0362514. This Is The Alphabetical Order Of The Keyword "KRYPTOS". "ENDYAHROHNLSRHEOCPTEOIBIDYSHNAIACHTNREYULDSLLSLLNO HSNOSMRWXMNETPRNGATIHNRARPESLNNELEBLPIIACAEWMTW NDITEENRAHCTENEUDRETNHAEOETFOLSEDTIWENHAEIOYTEY QHEENCTAYCREIFTBRSPAMHHEWENATAMATEGYEERLBTEEFOASFIO TUETUAEOTOARMAEERTNRTIBSEDDNIAAHTTMSTEWPIEROAGR IEWFEBAECTDDHILCEIHSITEGOEAOSDDRYDLORITRKLMLEHA GTDHARDPNEOHMGFMFEUHEECDMRIPFEIMEHNLSSTTRTVDOHW?" NOTE: You Need To Arrange This Cipher In A 7×48 Grid, Then Transpose The Groups Of 7 Characters With The Route 0362514 & Stack It Back In The Grid. You Them Can Read The Solution Which Is In Reverse. The NSA Cracked It In 1998, But Gave A False Solution Making Me Believe They Lied To Hide The Real Method Used. They Used Chapters 11-13 Of The Army Field Guide Cryptography Sections. Unsolved: Section 4 Uses The Previous 3 Solutions As The Key Using A Form Of Columnar And Key Transposition Route Cipher With The Key "SATURN". The Use Of The Mengenlehreuhr Clock To Determine The Route For Transposition.