This is after the sequential filling of two 7×7 grids with Kryptos’ K4 and then applying SANBORN-SCHEIDT in a modular fashion.
The hope is that one of this potential secondary ciphertexts will yield some clue that will indicated we’ve removed the masking layer.
These are after an attempt to strip SCHEIDT-SANBORN from a K4 arranged in sequential 7×7 grids.
This is what you get after modular subtraction and arithmetic of SANBORN-SCHEIDT from Kryptos K4 arranged in a 7×14 grid.
-Kryptosfan
Woo…
This is the SCHEIDT-SANBORN stripping effort from a Kryptos K4 7×14 grid
Thank you Simon Singh. His Black Chamber is frequently useful for Kryptos efforts.
The previous posts generated some possible “secondary” ciphertexts after an attempt to remove an additive/subtractive superencipherment. These are the frequency analysis histograms generated.
Secondary #1 (3 Q’s but no U’s?)
Secondary #2 (Too many z’s and p’s to be plaintext?)
Secondary #3 (5 Q’s and only 2 U’s?)
Secondary #4 (could be, it really could be. Probably not because only 2 E’s and 4 Z’s)
Secondary #5 (4 Q’s and only 1 U)
Secondary #6 (6 Z’s? Unless it has “zany crazy razzmatazz” then it’s not a message I want to read)
Secondary #7 (Maybe? It’s a Scrabbler’s nightmare with 2 Q’s, 4 X’s and 4 Z’s)
Secondary #8 (4 Z’s but only 1 E? hard to believe in plaintext frequencies)
So by even the simplest analysis of Q’s to U’s, some of these can be excluded. Others are maybe but Z’s were all over most of these possible secondary ciphertexts of Kryptos.
Excluded as really unlikely: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8
Maybe but probably not: 4, 7
So not to be too picky but I’m not super convinced by any of them. The premise was that if you removed the additive then you’d have regular English frequencies. The justification for this is that Scheidt said that they are masked and that once you remove the masking, you can begin work on the underlying cipher. It’s possible that any of them could be true but not any more true than many other efforts made by any Kryptos fan. My verdict is that none of them were close enough to plaintext English letter frequencies to make a convincing case towards going further. Yeah, those letter frequencies are average but if yours aren’t even close then it’s time to move along.
I may have tried the wrong keywords or orientation. I still like the idea of 7×14 or two 7×7 grids. I just may be a little wrong on the masking technique still.
So, can we rearrange K4 to align the letters K, R, Y, P, T, O, and S as a way to rearrange the secondary ciphertext back to the original ciphertext without losing NYPVTT=BERLIN? I looked to see where all the incidences of those letters were in an effort to try and see if there were different possible rearrangements. Then I had a realization…
Nope even though I still really, really want to do just that.
So in a continued effort to try and find some new ideas about K4, I wondered about the possibility of using the double letters to split up the ciphertext of K4. You could really use it for whatever but I was still beating the dead horse idea of superencipherment so that’s where I took it eventually.
Instead of spreading them out, I did the math for KRYTPOS, SANBORN, and SCHEIDT as possible superencipherment keywords. The idea is that if you divide K4 by sections split by double letters then you have 7 sections.
It’s math but at least it’s colorful.
Here’s what they look like separately.
Just eyeballing them, it didn’t seem like anything went back to plain-text frequencies.
This is what it would look like if you had to add the keywords back in.
I always put stuff online but sometimes I don’t even like to see these wall-of-text worksheets. Keep in mind that even if it’s not super interesting that the hope is that maybe something will inspire someone, someday to solve K4. That’s the end and these are the attempted means.
This is what the letter strings would look like if you added KRYPTOS, SANBORN and SCHEIDT back into K4 of Kryptos when it was split by double letters.
I’m mostly looking at the number of Z’s, X’s and Q’s to gauge relative similarity to plaintext frequencies. We can count by hand or run through a program but it should be pretty visible that these are not plaintext frequencies.
Seriously, aside from seeing clearly plaintext letter frequencies, I’m not really sure what I’d analyze the strings of letters for exactly.
Has anyone thought of ideas for how to tell if they’ve even gotten past the masking technique? We need some kind of method for knowing if we’re on the right track, otherwise how can you tell if you’re making any progress?
As we start to close out another year, where are we at with K4 and what have we learned?
I’ll start:
My recurring idea for K4 is a superencipherment (adding or subtracting a keyword mod26) on top of a substitution cipher. I can think of keywords and different ideas for likely substitution methods but have so far had no luck. Some times I’m not sure I’d know what to do with the primary ciphertext once I’d stripped the masking technique.
So what other ideas are out there? Try and break it down to a simple sentence or two. What do we think are the most likely candidates for possible methods used in K4? We’re not trying to steal your secrets, keep it general but definitely share.
Someone asked me to explain the term a little more in depth.
K4 Syndrome is a term first coined by Gary Phillips. It is an attempt to describe a condition common to people who attempt to find a solution to the fourth part of Kryptos. There is very likely an analogous psychological disease but we’ll update this definition the day we find out what the technical terms are for this behavior.
Symptoms include but are not limited to:
I won’t pretend that’s the final word on the subject but for anyone out there who has heard the term and been curious – that’s a passable overview. It’s definitely a behavior that becomes more obvious after repetitive occurrences with different people and isn’t limited to Kryptos. There is probably a type of subject or a type of community of hobbyists that draw people with this tendency but I won’t pretend to completely understand what those would be.
So let’s all keep each other as sane as possible and don’t forget: it’s supposed to be fun!
That’s what I get for setting setting up some posts in advance and taking some time off!
$50 for emails with Sanborn?
BERLINCLOCK
I’ll go dig around in the comments everyone has left but am not sure how this will help us any more than Berlin did. My first thought is that it will be easy to get lost in trying to assign meaning to the words Berlin and Clock instead of trying to reverse the ciphering.
Added: Audio interview thanks to Franky (http://goo.gl/eQKDLC)
And the Clock in question:
It would figure that someone like Sanborn would like Mengenlehreuhr…
Again, keep in mind that we were only to find the phrase “berlin clock” after decryption: attempting to use this particular clock to decipher K4 is not going to help.
The context with the other 97 letters will be certainly interesting in the end though.
p.s. I do think that this clock is supposed to help us understand a final message or experience (i.e. K5), I just don’t think it was meant to help solve K4. If Kryptos is the progenitor of his artwork immediately following then we can see there is some relationship with the copperplate and illumination/shadows created by it with a light source. The simplest method would be to look through the cutout letters but shining a light through seems more likely to me personally.
