Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Other Random Kryptos Musings

When the hint BERLIN was revealed I was 100% positive the next word was going to be TUNNEL --- a hidden, buried, Cold War operation to tunnel under the Berlin Wall and transmit intelligence underground using electromagnetism (wires) that was exposed figuratively and literally by Soviet intelligence thanks to a mole.

Then the next word was revealed to be CLOCK. Oh well, must have something to do with the "set theory" clock. However, I recently read the British code name for that tunnel operation was "Stopwatch." That's basically a clock, right? Misdirection? Coincidence? Helpful? Seeing what I want to see?

I also read some early Sanborn interviews and he talks about peeling layers of onions and sand grains in hour glasses a few times. The outer layer of the "tableaux" hasn't been used yet. I wondered if the hour glass comments could somehow hint at a shape or pattern, but nothing has jumped out at me yet.
K1 "Key" Rotation
Start out with the K1 ciphertext (I have bolded the typo 'K'):

EMUFPHZLRFAXYUSDJKZLDKRNSHGNFIVJ
YQTQUXQBQVYUVLLTREVJYQTMKYRDMFD


Reform 21x3:
EMUFPHZLRFAXYUSDJKZLD
KRNSHGNFIVJYQTQUXQBQV
YUVLLTREVJYQTMKYRDMFD


Rotate CCW:
DVD
LQF
ZBM
KQD
JXR
DUY
SQK
UTM
YQT
XYQ
AJY
FVJ
RIV
LFE
ZNR
HGT
PHL
FSL
UNV
MRU
EKY


Reform 21x3:
DVDLQFZBMKQDJXRDUYSQK
UTMYQTXYQAJYFVJRIVLFE
ZNRHGTPHLFSLUNVMRUEKY


Rotate CCW:
KEY
QFK
SLE
YVU
UIR
DRM
RJV
XVN
JFU
DYL
QJS
KAF
MQL
BYH
ZXP
FTT
QQG
LYH
DMR
VTN
DUZ


KEYQFKSLEYVUUIRDRMRJVXVNJFUDYLQJSKAFMQLBYHZXPFTTQQGLYHDMRVTNDUZ


KEY QFKSLEYVUUIRDRMRJVXVNJFUDYLQJSKAFMQLBYHZXPFTTQQGLYHDMRVTNDUZ

Interesting... assuming the K typo was intentional, though personally I doubt it.

If there I interest I can clean up the python code I used to generate this and post it to github.