Today, Sanborn lives with his wife, artist Jae Ko, on a private island in the Chesapeake Bay. “Probably not,” Byer says, ushering us toward the under-construction museum wing, its stenciled ceiling panels paying homage to, you guessed it, Kryptos. Each integrates with Kryptos on the NHB’s other side.ĭo the employees who pass these otherwise decorative stones know they are part of the Kryptos cipher? One has a Morse code motif on a ridge, another a compass rose pointing toward the unknown. Scattered on the lawn along the long promenade that leads to the arched entrance of the New Headquarters Building - NHB to the employees - are three of those same granite structures. “There are more outside, in the front of the building. “They are part of Kryptos,” Byer says, motioning toward the granite and koi pond. There are crape myrtles, shrubs, a koi pond, and a few jagged, polished pink granite outcroppings. The plaza is typical for an office park, with grass, a smattering of picnic tables, and seating surrounded by tasteful landscaping. While cyber-breakers at the National Security Agency used computers, Byer is proud to remind that CIA employee David Stein did it in 1999 by hand, an arduous process that, judging by his notes, took 400 hours of painstaking, convoluted thinking.īyer was gracious enough to take time from setting up a new wing of the CIA’s in-house museum - opening sometime this fall, but not to the public - to walk us around Kryptos for a firsthand look at Sanborn’s enigma. “The NSA broke the first three panels pretty quickly,” says Robert Byer, director of the CIA museum. In particular, the last 97 characters in the panel known as K4 continue to befuddle the crypto world. Today, with the cipher sitting just outside the windows of the world’s foremost cryptographers, one of the panels remains unsolved. “It was an unpleasant experience,” he says. In turn, the panels made headlines, and for two days Kryptos was the highest-searched subject on Google. It’s also been appropriated, without permission, for two best-selling novels - Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol - and hit movies based on the books. Thirty-two years later, Sanborn has endured innumerable requests for clues and countless incorrect declarations of what the cipher means. The Washington native imagined Kryptos would provide short-term amusement in the wake of its 1990 ribbon-cutting by CIA Director William Webster, that the panels would eventually be deciphered, and the world would move on. It was sculptor Jim Sanborn’s idea to plop a cryptographic art installation into the central courtyard of the CIA, home to some of the greatest cryptographers in the world. The coded installation is known as Kryptos, the Greek word for “hidden,” which explains its gibberish appearance. Many strain and twist trying to read the illegible message. The bend of the S and the position of onlookers determines how lines are read - left to right, backward and forward. A small pool of water gurgles at its base, and on its paneling are 1,735 perforated letters.įour such panels, stacked and welded together, form the scroll. Up to 5000-hours life from the lamp.In the middle of the courtyard at the CIA’s Langley headquarters is a 12-foot-tall, S-shaped copper scroll supported by a petrified tree. Includes a new High-Quality Optical System to produce bright, easy-onthe eye images. The short-throw lens makes it possible to produce an 80-inch screen from a distance of just 2.5 metres. Uses a widescreen, 16:9 aspect ratio LCD panel to produce powerful images. Its potential for use in business and entertainment is unlimited. Its lightness and portability also makes it ideal for use at parties and events, even outdoors. Preliminary But this projector is not just for the home. Liquid crystal projectors are the next generation of video monitors for the home. The PT-AE100 allows you easy access to 80 inches of powerful, high-quality images, in your own home. Now Panasonic introduces the PT-AE100 Home New Home Cinema Projector PT-AE100 Enjoy the Powerful, High-Quality Images of Cinema in your own Living Room. R NEW PRODUCT INFORMATION The home cinema market has grown steadily over the last few years, due mainly to the expansion in demand for DVD players and the lower pricing of surround systems.
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