The inscription on the Kryptos sculpture outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, is widely regarded as the most important cryptographic mystery of the past several decades.
Source: Elonka Dunin
While the first three sections of the encrypted message were solved years ago, the fourth section – known as K4 – remains unsolved.
Last year, Kryptos creator Jim Sanborn auctioned off the solution to K4 along with related archival material. The winning bid approached one million dollars, but the identity of the buyer remained unknown.
It has now been revealed that the buyer was the venture capital firm Paradigm. However, the company did not receive the plaintext solution – and did not want it. Instead, Sanborn provided a cryptographic hash of the solution. This allows anyone to verify whether a proposed solution is correct without revealing the actual text.
Paradigm has launched a platform that enables researchers and puzzle enthusiasts to submit potential solutions. To discourage brute-force attacks, each submission costs one dollar. If a submitted solution produces the same hash value as the one supplied by Sanborn, K4 can be considered solved.
Paradigm has published additional details in a statement on its website.
Those interested in learning more about Kryptos can find a detailed entry in the “Unsolved Crypto Mysteries” section of this website. Another highly recommended resource is cryptographer and Kryptos expert Elonka Dunin’s comprehensive Kryptos FAQ. which covers the history of the sculpture, previous solution attempts, and the many clues released by Jim Sanborn over the years.
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