As I see it it's a lesson about finding out things in the real world. It's even a little poetic that the people finding the solution are a pair of investigative journalists, digging up information that was technically already out there, rather than a puzzle solving cryptologist "breaking down the front door of the problem" so to say.
Kobek may actually have pulled that off once before, by the way. I'm pretty sure that his Zodiac killer candidate, Paul A. Doerr, will turn out to have been correct.
>Jim Sanborn planned to auction off the solution to Kryptos, the puzzle he sculpted for the intelligence agency’s headquarters. Two fans of the work then discovered the solution.
“If they don’t have the method,” she said, “it’s not solved,” she said.
That does raise a philosophical point to the craft of intelligence gathering. Speaking as a professional librarian, I do applaud the use of ATI (access to information) to find the appropriate data -- it's akin to a WW2 unit capturing an Enigma codebook.
As I see it it's a lesson about finding out things in the real world. It's even a little poetic that the people finding the solution are a pair of investigative journalists, digging up information that was technically already out there, rather than a puzzle solving cryptologist "breaking down the front door of the problem" so to say.
Kobek may actually have pulled that off once before, by the way. I'm pretty sure that his Zodiac killer candidate, Paul A. Doerr, will turn out to have been correct.
>Jim Sanborn planned to auction off the solution to Kryptos, the puzzle he sculpted for the intelligence agency’s headquarters. Two fans of the work then discovered the solution.
Gift link https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/science/kryptos-cia-solut...
I like this comment:
Victor Wong writes,
“If they don’t have the method,” she said, “it’s not solved,” she said.
That does raise a philosophical point to the craft of intelligence gathering. Speaking as a professional librarian, I do applaud the use of ATI (access to information) to find the appropriate data -- it's akin to a WW2 unit capturing an Enigma codebook.
This is about the Kryptos cypher, it should be in the submission's title, cause people here know what it is mostly.
They are guidelines, not rules, but the site guidelines here advise submitters to use the original title for linked articles: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
And frankly a Kryptos solution is much more interesting than some arbitrary CIA secret!
Alt title from NYT header: Solution to CIA’s Kryptos Sculpture Is Found in Smithsonian Vault
not clickbaity enough. journos got mortgages to pay & the Sulzbergers need their dividends.
Wrong kind of clickbait headline for HN though, probably more interesting that it's about the kryptos sculpture.