>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.
>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
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.