Learn more about the CIA's uncrackable code in the latest episode of Great Big Story, a new podcast from CNN about the delightful, surprising stories all around us.
In the middle of CIA headquarters, there sits a sculpture that contains a secret code that has stumped top cryptologists for decades.
In the late 1980s, artist Jim Sanborn was commissioned to create a sculpture to be displayed at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Knowing some of the world's top intelligence officials would see the piece practically every day, Sanborn made a work of art that is, in a word, puzzling. Unveiled on November 3, 1990, it's called Kryptos, and it contains a cryptographic challenge. Surely, someone would crack the code in just a couple of weeks, Sanborn thought.
But no one did. And, today, Kryptos remains one of the world's most famous unsolved mysteries. "I didn't think it would go on this long -- thirty years -- without being deciphered," Sanborn says.
Kryptos sits in a courtyard outside the CIA headquarters. A curvy, copper screen measuring 12 feet tall and 20 feet wide, the sculpture is packed with letters. "I cut with jigsaws, by hand, almost 2,000 letters," Sanborn says. The text that covers the sculpture looks like gibberish to the untrained eye, but Kryptos contains four distinct, encoded messages that together form a riddle, according to Sanborn.
Sanborn had no experience in the art of writing code before he created Kryptos. And he wasn't particularly good at math. "So I had to turn to somebody. Was it going to be the Soviets? Was it going to be Mossad? Was it going to be some other intelligence agency?" he cracks. "I pretty much crossed them all off because it probably wouldn't end well."
The artist ultimately sought guidance from Edward Scheidt, an expert in cryptology and encryption who had been chairman of the CIA's Cryptographic Center before he retired.
In the middle of CIA headquarters, there sits a sculpture that contains a secret code that has stumped top cryptologists for decades.
In the late 1980s, artist Jim Sanborn was commissioned to create a sculpture to be displayed at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Knowing some of the world's top intelligence officials would see the piece practically every day, Sanborn made a work of art that is, in a word, puzzling. Unveiled on November 3, 1990, it's called Kryptos, and it contains a cryptographic challenge. Surely, someone would crack the code in just a couple of weeks, Sanborn thought.
But no one did. And, today, Kryptos remains one of the world's most famous unsolved mysteries. "I didn't think it would go on this long -- thirty years -- without being deciphered," Sanborn says.
Kryptos sits in a courtyard outside the CIA headquarters. A curvy, copper screen measuring 12 feet tall and 20 feet wide, the sculpture is packed with letters. "I cut with jigsaws, by hand, almost 2,000 letters," Sanborn says. The text that covers the sculpture looks like gibberish to the untrained eye, but Kryptos contains four distinct, encoded messages that together form a riddle, according to Sanborn.
Sanborn had no experience in the art of writing code before he created Kryptos. And he wasn't particularly good at math. "So I had to turn to somebody. Was it going to be the Soviets? Was it going to be Mossad? Was it going to be some other intelligence agency?" he cracks. "I pretty much crossed them all off because it probably wouldn't end well."
The artist ultimately sought guidance from Edward Scheidt, an expert in cryptology and encryption who had been chairman of the CIA's Cryptographic Center before he retired.
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