I’ve been of two minds about the need to have the keywords for K1 and K2. In theory, palimpsest and abscissa can be significant indications of a later part of the puzzle and are obtainable after the vigenere ciphers have been broken. Ed Scheidt and probably every cryptology user knows they are not secure ways to encipher a message. I would be content with this point of view were it not for the repeated comments from Ed Scheidt and Jim Sanborn about their surprise that Kryptos has lasted this long, how they thought at least the first three sections would have been solved relatively quickly, and how the way K1-3 were broken was unexpected and not a true deciphering in the sense that THEY EXPECTED US TO KNOW THE KEYS.
Were it not for the interviews and comments from the creators, and if I found this sculpture in the deserted wasteland of post-apocalyptic West Virginia – I would possibly get through the first three parts, probably interpret the Morse Code and then assume the rest was gibberish and move on with caravan.
However, technically we lose nothing with the assumption that there are keys hidden in Kryptos that are meant to help us solve it. I mean really, 20 years? No one’s solved it in 20 years and a devotion of days, a couple weeks or a month to trying to retrieve the keys is a drop in the bucket compared to the effort exerted against K4. What good is it if we get the keys? It’s very likely that there is a hidden message relating to each section of Kryptos.
These are my efforts to find the keys. I have made a logical assumption that if there is a message providing the keys then it would be textual and not an artistic element which would be subject to personal opinion. Extending my logic, the Morse code is the most obvious and likely source of clues and keys. I gave a brief explanation of the pieces and history of Kryptos and described the need to find the keywords to a new co-worker and he immediately volunteered that he thought it would be in the Morse code. While the advice of a stranger is not a complete validation of the idea, it simply shows how common sense it is to look for our answers in the Morse code.
I tried some Anagrams of the Morse Code phrases.
I attempted a Pyramidal Transposition of the Morse Code.
I tried to decipher the Morse Code as a Rail Cipher.
I tried to decipher the Morse Code as a Route Transposition.
I tried some binary math on the Morse Code.
I tried forcing palindromes with the Morse Code phrases.
I attempted keyed-columnar transposition on the Morse Code text.
I even believe I’ve found the laziest method to find meaning in the Morse Code ever.
I analyzed the Morse Code symbols to look for patterns.
Sick of trying to find some rational way to peel off the keywords, I did my best to brute force a message out of the 81 letters found in the Morse Code phrases. My result
was about 95% of what I would expect of a keyword message.
I worked on re-translating the Morse Code.
I tried retrieving the K2 keyword “abscissa” from the K1 text by a Rail cipher.
You can view the K2 text as a conversation to see if anything lines up or becomes apparent.
I tried what I hoped would be a method for breaking transpositions on the Morse Code.
I developed a means of checking the distances between the P—MP in palimpest.
I tried it on the Morse code.
I even thought the typos might indicate the location of the keywords somehow.
I tried an abscised Morse code.
I tried aligning K2.
Is the Morse code a fractionated cipher?
Is the Morse code a Morbit Cipher?
Is the Morse code a Pollux Cipher?
I found abscissa in K1 but not how to retrieve it.
Kryptos - Beyond K4 
Palimpsest has a variety of contexts. One of them, perhaps the most widely known outside of Kryptos, is its archeological meaning. One thing that is abundantly clear is that the Morse Code on copperplate sandwiched between giant layered slabs — and especially since some of the Morse code is partially hidden by process of time and, yet, still visible — is obviously an archaeological palimpsest. It’s not obscure, and thinking of it as merely an artistic hint would be akin to calling the Vigenere tableau merely an artistic stretch to know we’re going to need Vigenere. What’s the difference? Palimpsest is not a word out of a million that we’d be lucky to happen upon. It’s quite common, according to archaeologists with whome I’ve discussed this (who, by the way, had no idea what Kryptos was — or that I was trying to obtain information about it objectively).
Dig (et al) interpretation seems to be a suggestion, as if we really needed it!
Palindrome, the word immediately next to palimpsest in a dictionary is further help, since there are palindromes within the Morse Code. This hint probably helps us narrow down our Vigenere attempt after knowing palindrome didn’t quite work but had the right length.
Possibly the eeee’s in the Morse Code have a connection to palimpsest.
I say all this, because I think the extreme efforts required to obtain the word Palimpsest is far more obscure than using these other consistent clues I’ve suggested. The puzzle is not supposed to spell things out, they’re supposed to REMIND the intended field agent what he’s supposed to do. But one step further, the clues are supposed to be generous enough to help someone who completely forgot — but there has never been a claim that the help would be spelled out.
To me, palimpsest is as easy a conclusion as the vigenere cipher used, and even easier than the transposition of k3. I’m not convinced it is going to be shown to us any other way. It’s worth trying, I admit, but I think if we recognize that we already know how palimpsest is shown to us, it will help us glean the appropriate clues for k4 and beyond.
my two cents
I always thought Sanborn wanted the Morse code plates to be partially exposed from the stones like fossils. I’ll concede that it’s possible to glean palimpsest in this way. I’ll continue my misguided efforts to retrieve the keywords for a while longer. Where do you see abscissa coming? What are your thoughts about whether we were supposed to have the keywords at the start vs. just being able to retrieve them after forcing a Vigenere solution?
Maybe the compass is the abscissa. What about K3 then?
K3 doesn’t really need a keyword… it could be enough to know abscissa+layer two. I showed you an XY graph and told you “layer two” then most of us would assume double transposition. Then what is our clue for K4?
Hey guys – Ive been playing with the grid of the remaining cipher text and interestingly when arranged in seven columns you can see an illusion to the text in K1. Between subtle shading … lies an iqlusion – you can then see BULL running vertically (bull as in BS as in lies), also there is an ADD, CUT and DIG reference at the bottom. I’ve followed the qlu’s as far as the co-ordinates in K2 but have been unable to sort them into any decent form. Whether this steganographical method only provides us with keywords at this stage is unknown. Im picking this is how we retrieve the key then we proceed to deciphering.
If you want me to post my findings where do you want them?
Cheers
Z (Tracy)
Anyone can send anything to the mail at “kryptos@fan.com” and I’ll post it and give it a page as long as it’s not insane gibberish. No reason we can’t all share, right? You folks have to read my attempts, it might be nice to get a little variety in here. Make sure you include any contact information you want listed so I can cite you correctly, i.e. name or pseudonym, website, email, etc. Also an option is to post it on another site and send the link by email. A further option is to make a comment with the link under the appropriate section (probably Steganography).
The tableau stands at a rotating pool of water. I think the water, representing the “dissemination of information,” was a clue to the rotational transposition. –maybe??
It moves? Like there’s a pump or just the natural motion…? I’d heard there was a light in the water but assumed that was to light the sculpture at night.
The water swirls. There’s a pump.
Originally it was supposed to be “agitated into standing waves.” It got changed, and it swirls like a whirlpool — a little known fact — confirmed by Sanborn himself in that 2005 DC trip.
What do I know? I wasn’t suggesting that looking for palimpsest was a bad idea. If anyone is going to find it, it’s you. I made my comments, because there seems to be a definite point in time where the Morse code has been exposed to enough people and such a variety of methods than any new methods would have to be inherently more obscure to surpass the “already tried that” barrier.
Do you see where I’m coming from? Then again, there is the possibility that it can be found some place — the clue that has been overlooked by everyone (according to Sanborn).
Abscissa is near Absence in the dictionary, and I think its a hint. The Morse Code is abscised (or cut off). How do you think abscissa correlates to the compass?
I’m sure we’re supposed to have the keywords up front — or a few to try. The puzzle was designed to be brute forced (go through k1, and you’ll see some of the clues), but the represents something a field agent could solve without brute forcing anything. So, both things are represented, and I think the Vigenere clues that help brute force the puzzle were put in to represent the biggest weakness in the Vigenere cipher. After all, this seems to be a tribute to progress, right?
hey. i found something very interesting. t is your position means north because t means tramontane which means north
I like it but it would likely be useful to finish the Kryptos riddle, sort of “Stand at the coordinates and look north”. Unfortunately “T” is too ambiguous and a lot of folks have different ideas of what it means. Your idea would actually have some practical application so thank you for suggesting it.
did you know that da vinci code has something to do with this.try using ‘mary’ or ‘grail’. they had the same coordinates on the book jacket
@jamaal The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is 13 years older than Kryptos so it’s more likely to be using anything Kryptos-related as a teaser or public relations maneuver than provide useful help for solving K4. The Kryptos coordinates (off by one number) were on the dustjacket for the publisher’s contest in 2003.