r/pics • u/wadleo • 1d ago

"Kryptos: The CIA's Unsolved Enigma Stumping Codebreakers Since 1990"

Post image
4.9k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

172 comments sorted by

2.6k

u/ToxicxBoombox 1d ago

IIRC, there’s 4 codes hidden in it, 3 of the 4 have been solved, the last code everyone thinks has been lost. Even the creator of it said he wasn’t quite sure what it after all these years

1.6k

u/Acceptable_Buy177 1d ago

I’ve also heard that the last code probably has a fatal encryption mistake that makes it meaningless and impossible to solve. Both are just rumors though.

596

u/Dr_Passmore 23h ago

That would make sense. Considering 3 of the 4 have been broken and the amount of time spent trying to crack the final one. 

•

u/Icy_Ground1637 9h ago

If you solve it, You win a 100,000 dollar job at the CIA but then again why have never heard from the people that solved it !!!

•

u/twippy 3h ago

Because they've been employed by the cia, who has strict non-disclosure agreements.

•

u/True_Ad8993 8m ago

Now I'm imagining someone storming into the CIA offices being like "I solved it!" and they say "congrats, you're the 5th one today"

280

u/sexysausage 23h ago

Makes sense that a typo in the fabrication process made it impossible to solve.

217

u/Ugleh 19h ago

That's why one of the zodiac killers puzzles wasn't solved for the longest time. Because of misspellings and possible encryption error.

142

u/JhinPotion 17h ago

Yep. People think Zodiac was a genius, but he was a blasé idiot who didn't get caught largely due to incompetence with a little racism sprinkled on top, and his codes are so hard to crack because the guy couldn't fucking spell.

138

u/overtoke 16h ago

i mean, he even looks stupid https://i.imgur.com/sLpYD3B.jpeg

43

u/Nevermind04 14h ago

Damn dude nsfw. What if my boss walked by while I have a pic of that huge pussy on my phone?

•

u/Xetiw 29m ago

At least it's not Drake.

31

u/AlienHatchSlider 15h ago

What a chud.

16

u/WorksForTheEmpire 13h ago

Expected it. Was not let down. 5 stars.

8

u/Yardsale420 13h ago

I have it on high authority that man eats his own boogers and can’t count.

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u/Ultravod 11h ago

Roses are red / Michael Jackson sang "Thriller"

30

u/CatOfTechnology 14h ago

Genuinely, and I mean this: If you, dear reader, are in to learning about the history of notable criminals and you aren't already aware, you would be shocked and irritated by just how often the reason a prolific criminal wasn't caught within a very reasonable few days was entirely contingent on gross negligence, incompetence and unabashed racism by law enforcement.

12

u/MattieShoes 14h ago

Ted Bundy escaped custody twice. That still floors me.

•

u/Vio_ 6h ago

Ted Bundy was caught because he was speeding. Then the cop who pulled him over noticed he had thief tools in his car. It was one of the best police catches ever.

•

u/GroundbreakingAd8310 11h ago

...so u hve r chnc

103

u/d3l3t3rious 19h ago

Yep there is a super long youtube series that breaks it all down, including the mistakes. Very interesting stuff.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm7h0J9VRFvdEOv5xLHcqdNgUtKGv7p3Z&si=w4p_wnyKzRIbfuft

4

u/Maximum_Rat 13h ago

It’d have been kinda fun if after that puzzle was published, he sent another one that fixed the mistake and was like “sorry guys, typo, THIS ONE you won’t get!!!

17

u/ThisIsPaulDaily 19h ago

I think one or two had already been confirmed to have typos 

21

u/Low_Attention16 20h ago

One way hash

44

u/SeekerOfSerenity 23h ago

But he's said he's going to auction it off. I don't think that would go so well if the winning bidder was told there is no solution. 

14

u/mezbot 17h ago

You just need the type of bidders that would invest in NFTs and things like that. They are used to it.

6

u/Alibotify 14h ago

Exactly, he also is auctioning documents he used to create it. The AI tool that’s being auctioned by the creator will not help you solve it just tells you if you type the right answer.

35

u/Midnight_Slump 21h ago

Maybe the decripted code explicitly states to not let it be known and that’s the way into the top CIA job. Anyone that has actually cracked it knows and doesn’t spill the beans

23

u/boothie 19h ago

Would be funny if the last one was just "don't reveal the previous codes"

31

u/Garrand 19h ago

"Remember to drink your Ovaltine!"

1

u/darpalarpa 12h ago

It's actually just a coupon code for 20% off the donuts.

•

u/the_slate 2h ago

20% off a your purchase at Michael’s.

2

u/PotatoFromFrige 14h ago

It’s very short. The shorter the code the harder it is to crack, as you can’t use a technique like frequency analysis (e is most common, etc) and some others are pointless.

The creator did reveal a few hints, including the word Berlin and a year, although I forget which

-2

u/flightwatcher45 18h ago

Wonder if modern AI/computing could account for errors even!?

7

u/UniqueIndividual3579 16h ago

AI: put glue on your pizza.

Quantum computing doesn't help with a one time pad.

144

u/DrManhattan_DDM 19h ago

NPR just did a story on him within the last month. He hasn’t forgotten the solution, and he’s going to be auctioning it off so that it’s not lost whenever he eventually passes. His hope is that whomever wins it will keep the solution secret still.

22

u/ToxicxBoombox 18h ago

Oh okay awesome! For some reason I felt I heard years ago that people kept trying to solve it and the creator of it said something along the lines of like “at this point I’m not even sure what the answer is anymore” but sounds like maybe he wasn’t being literal with that!

22

u/142muinotulp 18h ago

He had forgotten some things because it had been so long. He did produce the original ciphers for parts of the code after they were solved, and because there is in fact 1 mistake he made. I forget which letter it is, but its meant to be swapped with a different one. He has released a couple of clues. It'll be a little bit tragic if whoever buys it shares the answer, rather than checking and confirming it can be solved

4

u/iupuiclubs 18h ago

"I was wrong about something I heard years ago, sorry I misdirected everyone!"

What is wrong with humans lol.

114

u/BigCommieMachine 23h ago

My guess is there is no solution and it symbolizes that there is always a code to crack.

124

u/LastPirateAlive 20h ago

The real code to crack are the friends we made along the way.

23

u/KiritoJikan 19h ago

The real crack is the code, or more crack.

20

u/d3l3t3rious 19h ago

The real crack was the crack the CIA distributed into black communities.

1

u/manimal28 15h ago

Also if they wanted the code broken they would kidnap the guy and waterboard it out of him.

4

u/Not_The_Expected 17h ago

The real code is my friends crack who's on the way

5

u/FinnegansWakeWTF 19h ago

There's a solution and the artist is going to auction it off soon because he's old

45

u/InfernalGriffon 21h ago

I just cracked the 4th one during lunch.

It reads "The Game"...

Fuck!

7

u/mmoonbelly 20h ago

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh

3

u/tequilajinx 15h ago

Incredible, I was on a streak of a few years and lost twice in one day.

1

u/Bookr09 13h ago

Please explain?

2

u/tequilajinx 12h ago

The goal of The Game is not to think about The Game. As soon as you you learn about The Game, you become a player. When you think about The Game, you must announce that you’ve lost The Game. Then your clock starts over uniil you remember it again.

Welcome to The Game.

•

u/Zeldon567 11h ago

The only winning move is not to play, it seems.

•

u/tequilajinx 10h ago

Too late, you’re already playing.

7

u/sychs 21h ago

Congratufuckinglations 🎊

•

u/timmaywi 7h ago

Thug aim

1

u/Ikeddit 19h ago

Fuck you, I lose : (

22

u/wilkinsk 23h ago

So we know who the creator is? This isn't like a war time code that they've been working on?

54

u/KyleStanley3 22h ago

No, its an art piece

So we do know who its creator is

7

u/eslforchinesespeaker 16h ago

This pic is being posted for karma because the Washington Post ran a lengthy article on Aug 14 , describing the history, and interviewing the puzzle designer, who is preparing to auction off the final solution for his 80th birthday.

Here is the link (paywalled):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/art/2025/08/14/kryptos-code-k4-solution-jim-sanborn-auction/

The wiki article is pretty current as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos

3

u/lew_rong 14h ago

Some say that the fourth code is the Epstein list

1

u/BedtimeGenerator 17h ago

Part 1: "BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION." (The word "illusion" is intentionally misspelled as "iqlusion" by the artist, Jim Sanborn). * Part 2: "IT WAS TOTALLY INVISIBLE HOWS THAT POSSIBLE ? THEY USED THE EARTHS MAGNETIC FIELD X THE INFORMATION WAS GATHERED AND TRANSMITTED UNDERGRUUND TO AN UNKNOWN LOCATION X DOES LANGLEY KNOW ABOUT THIS ? THEY SHOULD ITS BURIED OUT THERE SOMEWHERE X WHO KNOWS THE EXACT LOCATION ? ONLY WW THIS WAS HIS LAST MESSAGE X THIRTY EIGHT DEGREES FIFTY SEVEN MINUTES SIX POINT FIVE SECONDS NORTH SEVENTY SEVEN DEGREES EIGHT MINUTES FORTY FOUR SECONDS WEST X LAYER TWO." * Part 3: "SLOWLY DESPARATLY SLOWLY THE REMAINS OF PASSAGE DEBRIS THAT ENCUMBERED THE LOWER PART OF THE DOORWAY WAS REMOVED WITH TREMBLING HANDS I MADE A TINY BREACH IN THE UPPER LEFTHAND CORNER AND THEN WIDENING THE HOLE A LITTLE I INSERTED THE CANDLE AND PEERED IN THE HOT AIR ESCAPING FROM THE CHAMBER CAUSED THE FLAME TO FLICKER AND THEN I COULD SEE INSIDE." (This section is a paraphrased excerpt from the diary of archaeologist Howard Carter, describing the opening of King Tutankhamun's tomb). The Unsolved Part (Part 4): The final section of the code, known as K4, has not yet been publicly solved. The artist has provided a few clues over the years, including the words "BERLIN" and "CLOCK", but the full plaintext remains a mystery to the public.

1

u/HobbitousMaximus 16h ago

I remember a part of a documentary on the codes. The last solution is not only known to the creator, but the director of the CIA is given a copy of the answer as well.

1

u/Substantial__Unit 13h ago

He's also dropped tips on giving some clues.

841

u/TripCruise 1d ago edited 1d ago

I thought I read recently that they planned to auction off the final code?

Edit: Yep! NYT Article link (paywall)
A Solution to the C.I.A.’s ‘Kryptos’ Sculpture Goes Up for Auction - The New York Times

Exerpt:

Mr. Sanborn has spent years answering tens of thousands of emails from people who believe they have cracked the puzzle. About 10 years ago, he started charging people $50 for a “short personal response” to emails in order to weed out most of the guesses.

“What can I say? I’m tired of it,” he said in an interview, adding an expletive before “tired.”

279

u/yepthisismyusername 23h ago

Yeah, I'm thinking this post is marketing for the auction.

68

u/hobbie 21h ago

Do people with the money to afford such frivolous purchases actually read random Reddit posts? It’s more likely OP is a karma-farming bot; check their history and it’s full of posts like this.

33

u/BrothelWaffles 20h ago

People who have that kind of money have even less to do than the average Redditor, what the hell do you think they're doing with that time?

7

u/Ballislife36 20h ago

More like people who are interested in codes/numerology/encryption read Reddit and there is always a whale willing to spend tons of money on any hobby or interest for seemingly no reason

5

u/kubigjay 20h ago

Reddit is a source for a lot of semi -news sources. So popular here, it will appear there. They in turn influence big news media.

A bit like OP is definitely something that would be used to stir up interest in a sale. I bet it is part of a marketing firm used by the auction house.

•

u/hobbie 6h ago

When is the last time you’ve seen someone post about an item that is going to be sold at Sotheby's? And I don’t count the Banksy piece because it only went viral after the fact, not before.

The people with the funds to buy this item are likely aware of the auction through different means. That’s not to say that auction houses don’t have marketing, but they probably use different methods like paying art or antiquities brokers to recommend items.

1

u/Cold-Drop8446 14h ago

Reddit feeds into search algos and AI training. Google, chatgpt, Bing etc will see this post, the models will learn from it, and theres now a chance that if anyone asks (AI service) about Kryptos then theres a chance the bot will mention it being auctioned off. This isnt a conspiracy, the reddit to LLM pipeline is the stated rational behind reddit going public. 

Im not saying that this is why the posts exists, its more to say that you shouldnt assume that this information will only be accessible to someone who uses reddit. 

3

u/nonhiphipster 19h ago

Nah. This is a very famous thing. Not everything is an ad lol.

•

u/TripCruise 9h ago

*Steps across the isle
No it must be an ad! DOWNVOTE HIM

0

u/yepthisismyusername 17h ago

But the NY times article about the auction just came out on 8/14. Seems pretty coincidental that this post (that kind of suspiciously says nothing about the auction) would show up.

1

u/ChurlishSunshine 17h ago

Maybe OP read the article and decided to make a post about Kryptos. So it's not a coincidence but also not a direct ad.

1

u/yepthisismyusername 13h ago

Absolutely correct. I'm still sticking with my pessimistic hypothesis.

•

u/TripCruise 8h ago

It could be less about money and more about lack of a life? I connected two dots on a random post, I doubt I'm an ad. Although, aren't we all these days?

377

u/Kitfox715 1d ago edited 1d ago

Lemmino has a pretty decent video on Kryptos if you're interested in its history.

28

u/Xicsukin 19h ago

I was going to post this. It is a very well done video.

25

u/Crazycanuckeh 22h ago

Third this

9

u/PhantomJokr 21h ago

Fourth this

27

u/knitted_beanie 23h ago

I second this

205

u/Xanderson 1d ago

It says “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”

47

u/UMustBeNooHere 1d ago

“Son of a bitch!”

8

u/sonic_couth 21h ago

Oooooh, yer gonna get it! Just wait until your father gets home and I tell him what you said!

5

u/4N_Immigrant 14h ago

aw fudge

27

u/Vehlin 1d ago

Ovaltine? A crummy commercial?!

16

u/Automatic_Category56 23h ago

They should call it Roundtine.

10

u/illydelph 23h ago

That’s gold!

8

u/FruitWeapons 1d ago

Dammit, you beat me to it,

5

u/graspedbythehusk 23h ago

“We apologise for the inconvenience “

6

u/ZachMN 19h ago

“THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!”

3

u/turdbugulars 19h ago

Damn didn’t scroll down far enough ..I just made this comment.

1

u/JayTNP 18h ago

Came here to find this. Thank you, and don’t shoot your eye out!

•

u/EyesWideStupid 8h ago

"There's always money in the banana stand."

29

u/polaroid_kidd 1d ago

Can't help but be reminded of Cryptonomicon.

6

u/Phyllis_Tine 21h ago

One of my favourite novels! I went in with no idea of it, and read it on a tablet. I didn't pay attention to how many pages until I'd got to page 200 or so. I'm really glad I stuck it out.

18

u/heckincovfefe 20h ago

Has the janitor taken a crack at it yet?

10

u/burger54 17h ago

He did. It reads: I got her number. How about them apples?

1

u/ZachMN 19h ago

Scruffy?

7

u/Retlawst 15h ago

Honestly hope it has encryption error and is never deciphered. The liminal nature of information lost over time fits the overall message of the installation.

10

u/moody_chickens 22h ago

Rick Roll.

11

u/sg209 23h ago

Skill issue

7

u/unknownpoltroon 21h ago

nah, the guys at NSA had a gentlemen's agreement to figure it out on their own as a hobby and not use the code cracking software/supercomputers. that's why it took so long.

13

u/soulmagic123 1d ago

I ran it through chat gpt and it told me to "drink more ovaltine "

3

u/i_am_voldemort 20h ago

Only WW knows and he just died

7

u/Wolfy4226 20h ago

It says.... "Drink more Ovaltine"

6

u/fukijama 19h ago

You gotta fold it to solve it

5

u/DavyB 15h ago

I’ve actually solved this code. It reads “we’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.”

9

u/Square-Principle-195 23h ago

It says, "you lost the game".

7

u/justnigel 23h ago

Damn youuuuuu.

13

u/evilsir 1d ago

maybe if they stretched it out flat and like, didn't have it on glass? no WONDER it's hard to solve. it's wave and practically INVISIBLE.

3

u/wilkinsk 23h ago

Fucking morons, man

-2

u/evilsir 23h ago

i don't wanna be that guy, but i really did think i didn't need to add the /s or /jk because damn.

9

u/toolatetocare 22h ago

Pretty sure the guy who responded was being sarcastic too dude. Did you need him to put /s at the end of his comment?

-1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

-1

u/evilsir 1d ago

r/Whooosh

1

u/PocketWank 1d ago

I don’t think that’s really a ‘whoosh’, it’s more that your writing style didn’t quite convey the sarcasm you were going for.

2

u/Amarin88 17h ago

I asked ai to give its best guess at solving it and it made

EAST OF THE WALL GO NORTHEAST TO FIND BERLIN CLOCK AND DIG THERE TO SEEK HIDDEN TRUTH UNDER STARZ

3

u/Alienhaslanded 13h ago

It was very close to being solved but the last part probably had an error which made it unsolvable.

2

u/trojan_asante 12h ago

If you solve the last puzzle, you disappear......

5

u/ZachMN 19h ago

“D-R-I-N-K-Y-O-U-R-O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E”

2

u/quantumn0de 19h ago

"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."

2

u/OMGKohai 18h ago

Kryptos is one of the wildest puzzles out there. Even the creator is uncertain about the last code. Auctions planned for it just add another layer of intrigue. It's crazy how many people think they've solved it-imagine spending $50 for a personal response from the guy.

2

u/Ozzimo 15h ago

"Be sure... to... drink you... Ovaltine..? It's stupid ad!"

1

u/Mobile_Analysis2132 20h ago

Check out Elonka Dunin's page which contains various history of the sculpture, code breaking attempts, references in books, movies, and shows, and her own lectures and discussions on the subject.

https://www.elonka.com/kryptos/

1

u/FarEast_ 18h ago

There’s also one on the UNC Charlotte Campus. Used to sit by it at night and eat dinner before my evening seminar class. It’s got a light in the center that makes all the characters project on the wall behind it

1

u/colemanjanuary 16h ago

It probably says "You're hired. Report to third floor. Your office is 322. Welcome to the CIA. Friday is jeans and Hawaiian shirt day."

2

u/throwaweigh1245 12h ago

I mean it’s in the middle of CIA headquarters so most likely you are already hired if you there reading it

1

u/YurtleAhern 16h ago

It’s the KFC recipe.

1

u/savesyertoenails 15h ago

looks like an outdoor toilet

1

u/gstormcrow80 15h ago

For those for whom Langley is hard to access, there is another similar piece by the same artist outside of the Hirshhorn Modern Art Museum in DC:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipodes_(sculpture)

•

u/BronxKnight 3h ago

Solved it.

1

u/Sobeman 15h ago

I'm surprised it's still there because the current CIA probably doesn't even know its a code.

1

u/YYCDavid 14h ago

These people unsolving puzzles must be the same ones who dethaw their frozen steaks.

-1

u/hospicedoc 17h ago

It seems to me like this is something that AI was made to solve.

-9

u/SuitableKey5140 1d ago

Yep, got it! Not too hard if you know the right method

-11

u/Elieftibiowai 23h ago edited 18h ago

Cant AI do it?

Edit: apparently I am not the only one wondering this, and it doesn't seem far off to ask for it.  Regardless of it was the intention of the creator or not, there seems to be a possibility to use AI for this https://medium.com/@michaelpnaughton/how-i-cracked-the-kryptos-code-a-35-year-mystery-7c46004f61b6

7

u/Rebelhero 22h ago

Buddy, what do you think AI is? it's not a miracle, nor actually intelligent. It's just a machine learning algorithm. It cant do anything that hasn't already been done then taught to it.

-10

u/Elieftibiowai 22h ago

And what are codes? Algorithms. It could do it way faster by trial and error 

6

u/pmyatit 21h ago

There's plenty of encryption type things that the best and fastest computers can't decrypt

3

u/ikuzusi 19h ago

How do you trial and error a code? You have no way to tell the correct answer from gibberish?

-1

u/Elieftibiowai 18h ago

Well how did the humans do it? They looked for patterns

3

u/ikuzusi 18h ago

This all seems a bit over your head to be honest.

0

u/Elieftibiowai 18h ago

Thats why I am asking for clarification, but have only received downvotes 

3

u/ikuzusi 18h ago

Alright I'll make an actual attempt.

What you and I call AI are actually Large Langauge Models (LLMs). They are incredibly complicated, but if you boil them down to their fundamentals then what they do is string together words based on how likely they are to appear in sequence from a set of training data. ChatGPT doesn't know anything, it can't process any information or invent anything new, it just responds based on what is in it's training data. This is why you can get ChatGPT to very confidently tell you that 2+2=3 - it doesn't actually have any conception of numbers, it just tries to respond to you naturalistically.

Kryptos is an extremely complicated, multi-layered code that was built with machine codebreaking in mind. If you'd like some specifics on how it works, then this video does a very good job of explaining it. People have been trying to use machines to brute force Kryptos for a very long time, and while it has been useful at some steps (as you can see in the video), the remaining section - K4 - has been completely impenetrable thus far.

An LLM is not going to be of any particular benefit in cracking K4 because it doesn't really know or understand anything, it just spits out words based on how we speak about the topic. Brute forcing K4 hasn't worked yet, and likely won't ever, because it was made to be resilient against that kind of decryption, potentially by encrypting it multiple times in sequence, which would make brute forcing functionally impossible.

1

u/Elieftibiowai 17h ago

Thanks for the insight! Even though i still feel like LLMs are not able to solve such problems yet.

Also, comments made it seem like I was just plain stupid to ask this question, when other smarter people than me already used for grok exactly that, regardless of it makes sense, or it makes the right outcome. Its just as much a tool at this point like a pen, to get to the solution on paper 

2

u/theDelus 21h ago

And what are codes? Algorithms.

Ah no?

-3

u/[deleted] 20h ago edited 8h ago

[deleted]

-5

u/Ornery-Addendum5031 19h ago

Clickbait title; the code was made by “some guy” not the CIA. That some guy forgot what the answer to the 4th code. The “CIA” connection is that some CIA analysts were the ones to crack the first three parts, on their lunch break or for practice or something, and so the CIA gets mentioned in the same breath as the code any time it is brought up.

5

u/locke21 19h ago

The CIA “connection” is that it’s located in a courtyard at CIA HQ

-1

u/turdbugulars 19h ago

It says “Drink your Ovaltine”

-18

u/Alkemist101 23h ago

Surely AI can crack this...easy peesy lemon squeezey 😊