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Kryptos

1990 establishments in Virginia1990 sculpturesBuildings and structures in Fairfax County, VirginiaCentral Intelligence AgencyCopper sculptures in the United States
Granite sculptures in VirginiaHistory of cryptographyMcLean, VirginiaOutdoor sculptures in VirginiaRiddlesSculptures by Jim SanbornStone sculptures in VirginiaUndeciphered historical codes and ciphersWooden sculptures in the United States
Kryptos sculptor
Kryptos sculptor

Kryptos is a sculpture by the American artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters, the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia. Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about the meaning of the four encrypted messages it bears. Of these four messages, the first three have been solved, while the fourth message remains one of the most famous unsolved codes in the world. The sculpture continues to be of interest to cryptanalysts, both amateur and professional, who are attempting to decipher the fourth passage. The artist has so far given four clues to this passage.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Kryptos (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

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N 38.95227 ° E -77.14573 °
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New Headquarters Building

Savile Lane
22101
Virginia, United States
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Kryptos sculptor
Kryptos sculptor
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Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action. As a principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the President and Cabinet of the United States. Following the dissolution of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of a Director of Central Intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, and this group was transformed into the Central Intelligence Agency by implementation of the National Security Act of 1947. Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is a domestic security service, the CIA has no law enforcement function and is mainly focused on overseas intelligence gathering, with only limited domestic intelligence collection. The CIA serves as the national manager for HUMINT, coordinating activities across the IC. It also carries out covert action at the behest of the President. It exerts foreign political influence through its paramilitary operations units, such as the Special Activities Center. The CIA was instrumental in establishing intelligence services in many countries, such as Germany's BND. It has also provided support to several foreign political groups and governments, including planning, coordinating, training in torture, and technical support. It was involved in many regime changes, and carrying out terrorist attacks and planned assassinations of foreign leaders.Since 2004, the CIA is organized under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Despite having had some of its powers transferred to the DNI, the CIA has grown in size as a response to the September 11 attacks. In 2013, The Washington Post reported that in the fiscal year 2010, the CIA had the largest budget of all IC agencies, exceeding previous estimates.The CIA has increasingly expanded its role, including covert paramilitary operations. One of its largest divisions, the Information Operations Center (IOC), has officially shifted focus from counterterrorism to offensive cyber operations.The agency has been the subject of many controversies, including human rights violations, domestic wiretapping, propaganda, and allegations of drug trafficking.

Operation Washtub (Nicaragua)

Operation WASHTUB was a covert operation organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency to plant a phony Soviet arms cache in Nicaragua. It was a part of the CIA's effort to portray the administration of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz as having ties to the Soviet Union, prior to the CIA sponsored 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état which overthrew Árbenz later the same year. On 19 February 1954, the CIA, working through the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua, planted a cache of Soviet-made arms on the Nicaraguan coast near the fishing village of Masachapa to be "discovered" weeks later by Rafael Lola, a lieutenant in the Nicaraguan army, and fishermen in the pay of Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza García. The CIA also wished to dispose of the weapons, which were to have been used by Carlos Castillo Armas, and were therefore incriminating to the CIA. On May 7, 1954, President Somoza told reporters at a press conference that a Soviet submarine had been photographed, but that no prints or negatives were available. The story presented to the press was embroidered with the involvement of Guatemalan assassination squads. Somoza was supposed to convince the public that the arms had been intended for Guatemala. The press and the public were skeptical and the story did not get much press. However, the story became part of the Nicaragua local legends until the 1979 revolution.The operation received attention again during the attempts by the U.S. government to exploit the products of Operation PBHistory, the CIA effort to gather intelligence from documents left in Guatemala after the 1954 coup by the government and the communist party. Anti-Communist members of the US Congress, especially Charles J. Kersten and Patrick J. Hillings of the Kersten Committee, began to use PBHistory documents in their reports, provided by the CIA to forestall the possibility that members of Congress, officially ignorant of the CIA's role in the Guatemalan coup, would expose other CIA projects. A subcommittee headed by Hillings produced a final report. In addition to stating without evidence that the Guatemalan government had been acting under orders from the Soviet Union, this report also claimed that Soviet weapons had been brought covertly to Guatemala by submarine. This unintentionally drew attention to Operation WASHTUB.

MKNAOMI
MKNAOMI

MKNAOMI is the code name for a joint Department of Defense/CIA research program from the 1950s through to the 1970s. Unclassified information about the MKNAOMI program and the related Special Operations Division is scarce. It is generally reported to be a successor to the MKULTRA project focusing on biological projects including biological warfare agents—specifically, to store materials that could either incapacitate or kill a test subject and to develop devices for the diffusion of such materials.During its first twenty years, the CIA engaged in projects designed to increase U.S. biological and chemical warfare capabilities. Project MKNAOMI was initiated to provide the CIA with a covert support base to meet its top-secret operational requirements. The goal was to have a robust arsenal of lethal and incapacitating materials within the CIA's Technical Services Division (TSD). This would enable the TSD to serve as a center for supplying biological and chemical materials.Surveillance, testing, upgrading and the evaluation of special materials and items were provided by MKNAOMI to ensure that no defects or unwanted contingencies emerged during operational conditions. The U.S. Army's Special Operations Command (SOC) was assigned to assist the CIA with development, testing and maintenance procedures for the biological agents and delivery systems (1952). Both the CIA and SOC modified guns to fire special darts coated with biological agents and poisonous pills. The darts could incapacitate guard dogs, allowing agents to infiltrate the area that the dogs were guarding, and would then be used to awaken the dogs upon exiting the facility. In addition, the SOC was designated to research the potential to use biological agents against other animals and crops.A 1967 CIA memo which was uncovered by the Church Committee contained evidence of at least three covert techniques for attacking and poisoning crops that had been tested under field conditions. On November 25, 1969, President Richard Nixon banned any military use of biological weapons and Project MKNAOMI was dissolved. On February 14, 1970, a presidential order outlawed all stockpiles of bacteriological weapons and nonliving toxins. However, despite the presidential order, a CIA scientist was able to acquire an estimated 11 grams of deadly shellfish toxin from SOC personnel at Fort Detrick. The toxin was stored in a CIA laboratory where it remained undetected for over five years.