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Sculptor Gives a Hint For CIA's Kryptos
omega_cubed writes "The New York Times reports that Jim Sanborn, the sculptor who created the wavy metal pane called Kryptos that sits in front of the CIA in Langley, VA, has gotten tired of waiting for code-breakers to decode the last of the four messages. 'I assumed the code would be cracked in a fairly short time,' [Sanborn] said, adding that the intrusions on his life from people who think they have solved his fourth puzzle are more than he expected. So now, after 20 years, Mr. Sanborn is nudging the process along. He has provided The New York Times with the answers to six letters in the sculpture's final passage. The characters that are the 64th through 69th in the final series on the sculpture read NYPVTT. When deciphered, they read BERLIN."
RTFA. Somebody showed up on his doorstep with a binder full of claptrap, and they still weren't right.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
They have: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VENONA_project
The Soviet planners were so impressed with one-time pads that decided that they needed to be copied:
Somebody who was working for the manufacturers of Soviet secret-communication materials had reused pages of some of the "one-time" pads in other "one-time" pads, which were then used for other secret messages. This defeated the purpose of the one-time pad, which provides ideal security when each page is used exactly once and then disposed of.
The article continues:
It is unclear as to why this fatal mistake was made, or by whom.
I would guess that he, who made the mistake, is pushing up the daisies in Siberia now . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
FWIW, my high school German teacher was a teenager in Germany at the time, and her grandmother scolded her severely for busting a gut laughing at Kennedy when he uttered this line. And just to be clear, she comes from an old Prussian family -- this was not a case of an American military family having one over on their president. While folks in Berlin might not have made much of the turn of phrase, folks elsewhere in Germany, at least some of them, had a grand old time.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The US government used to work hard to keep the NSA out of the public eye. Though the existence of the organization wasn't a total secret, press coverage wasn't welcome at all until after September 11. I remember when I arrived at Defense Language Institute in late 1999 as a fresh Navy recruit, some among my supervisors, old hands in SIGINT and some of whom had served at Ft. Mead itself, were very upset at the recent Baltimore Sun coverage of DLI and the NSA. "The public doesn't need to know any of what we do."
Also, the CIA's spies had to use encryption. Their lives depended on it, and the organization grew out of earlier military units concerned with cryptography and codebreaking.
So when it came to putting up a monument like this, one that would attract the public to figure out its secrets, better to put it outside the CIA's headquarters, because by this point the existence and general purpose of the CIA was known to everyone.
Why do they call it Ovaltine? The mug is round. The jar is round. They should call it Roundtine.
Blame US Customs:
The story of OVALTINE®, or should we say Ovomaltine, begins in 1904. Ovomaltine was originally developed in Switzerland as a recovery drink for skiers returning from a long, active day. (For some reason it was never poured into little kegs and hung on the necks of St. Bernards for roaming the Alps.)
As it grew from a recovery drink into a popular chocolatey beverage, Ovomaltine decided to see the world. When it went through customs, however, a printing error forever changed the name of the chocolatey treat. And the world was introduced to OVALTINE. (Our thanks go out to customs!)
Of course, if this had happened today, it would be called... OBAMATINE
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
38.9518056N, 77.1455556W
-or- 38 57' 6.5"N, 77 8' 44"W
(+38 57' 6.50", -77 8' 44.00")
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=104463936351270454677.00049586da73dc035492f&ll=38.952071,-77.145732&spn=0.000743,0.001695&t=h&z=20
-- BearGriz72
I guess it has something to do with eggs and malt.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
No, you're not parsing it wrong at all. Ovum = egg. It has (had?) eggs in it. So you had it quite right. But just in case: we ARE referring to chicken eggs.
This is a game where the goal is to find the meaning or a word which is pronounced the same but means different things.
In English, this is called a homonym: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym.
As in, "Can you see the sea?"
English is my first language, but I am also fluent in German. One time a colleague asked me to translate an email that he had inadvertently been put on CC, in German. The whole department laughing their asses off over the word: Fehlerbehebungsmaßnahmen.
I told them that the meaning for me was crystal clear, but you would need a whole sentence in English to describe what it meant.
My girlfriend, who is a native German speaker, claims that Unterwasserseebootbeleuchtungsautomatik is a valid word, which is used by a Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän.
So we should cut JFK some slack about getting his articles wrong, or using one, where none should be used. At least he didn't try to wrestle with these words.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!