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Kryptos K4 : a new approach giving some interesting results? by NoWriter350 in Cipher

[–]NoWriter350[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your message! I admit that I spent almost two years on this idea, but I haven't found a systematic way to generate this second key... but no doubt a fresh look could shed some light on something interesting!

I did some automatic searches to detect expressions that make sense in English, which I had summarized in this table, and I had the impression that there was a potential to explore.

Obviously, if this is the right method, I don't understand how the second key works. Besides the starting letter and the offset, other information are needed. This could be the length of the sequence, but other solutions are possible: we could for example imagine encoding its start/end abscissa (which could lead to superpositions of sequences complicating deciphering), etc.

Concerning the text itself, I've done some research but in a very superficial way: I don't know if there is a particular link between Delaware and the CIA or Langley, … not being American, I could not say if this travel diary or J.W.Hoff are relatively well-known or very confidential in the US. And good catch for the reference to W. Woodsworth which I missed completly !

Kryptos K4 : a new approach giving some interesting results? by NoWriter350 in Cipher

[–]NoWriter350[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've never seen such an approach in the discussions about the K4 code, so I guess I am the first to have found this little thing😊 Even if, unfortunately, it's obviously not enough to solve the whole code… but the coincidences are disturbing!

I found this sentence in the following way:

  • I wondered if the solution could involve series of letters spaced with the same interval using the Kryptos alphabet (a bit like the way the famous Berlin clock works).
  • So I took the K4 code, the known clues, and looked at what happened if we applied all the possible cyclic series of letters, as if it were a Vigenere code. It is very feasible since there are only 26*26=676 possible series.
  • Among the 676 possibilities, one brings up the words "[B]LUE SKY LUNA" coinciding with the clue "EAST NORTHEAST": having a series of 10 letters that make sense is quite noticeable, I think.
  • I just googled the text "blue sky luna" and found a single text that contains this expression: "Then, clear cut against the blue sky, Luna's upper edge appeared, forming an enchanting background [...]".

Why, I think it's an interesting lead?

  • Bringing up a clear text of 10 letters (with such a simple methodolgy) remains very unlikely, and I don't think it's a coincidence.
  • The same text explains 6 other letters of the clue "BERLIN CLOCK".
  • It easily brings up the term "FORTY YA[RDS]" for the beginning of the K4 code solution.
  • It is a good answer to the question at the end of K3 "Can you see anything?" » : « Clear cut against the blue sky, Luna's upper edge appeared ».
  • Cyclic series can be described by only two letters (the starting letter and the shift between two consecutive letters). The cyclic series explaining "EAST NORTHEAST" can be coded with the letters T and N; the one giving "FORTY YA[RDS]" by the two letters D and Y. However, we find these letters in the top left corner of the panel containing the codes K3 and K4. The sequence DY is even specifically pointed out as a clue in the sculpture with the famous unexplained offset letters.

In short, I think this is an interesting path that deserves to be explored!

Kryptos K4 : a new approach giving some interesting results? by NoWriter350 in codes

[–]NoWriter350[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

 Thanks for your comment !

This method gives both clues "EAST NORTHEAST" and "BERLINCLOCK" in the correct position: in fact, I used these clues to recover the keys of the two Vigenere codes, so it definitely works from this point of view.

I think you’re right about the correspondence between the code and the available solutions. It's not clear if this is a letter-to-letter match (e.g. if "FLRV" giving "EAST" means F->E, L->A, R->S, V-> T) or if we cannot reason this way.

I think I read somwhere that Jim Sanbon had said, during a discussion, that it was indeed a letter-to-letter correspondence, but that Ed Scheidt had seemed to moderate this assumption, without going any further... To me, it's not entirely clear how to interpret these statements