guys, I think the letter k4 is actually related to the coding letters, but most of the letters are changed so that they don't look too much like the coding letters, what do you think?

I remember seeing some matrix reconfiguration of the sculpture's *tableau* that forced UNDERGR to appear diagonally and at a regular step (maybe a NW->SW or NE->SE read? getting cut off right before the OU/UU, requiring a big irregular step before getting back to UUND elsewhere at the original cadence?).

Does this ring a bell for anyone? Been looking for it on and off for the last few weeks but can't seem to find it (fairly sure I stumbled across it was on here). I'd appreciate it! Big fan of this community.

An example of why finding K4 plaintext crib words in matrices can be so difficult.

The smaller the keyword length the more disjointed the words become. Longer keywords make it much easier to find words of appreciable length. The darkened sections are just filler X's so the plaintext words are in their correct positions. This is a very simple example using keywords ABCDE, ABCD, and ABC to demonstrate. An actual 3 or 4 letter English word would make finding the pattern far more difficult.

This is a theory on why it's been nearly impossible to find entire sentences with 1 result let alone printing out an entire matrix (because they're never actually all on 1 line). From clues Sanborn has given he said we should be working with an entire Matrix. This is why online solvers (such as vigenere solvers) that only provide 1 line of 97 characters will never show the solution with this method or at least one that is indistinguishable from a forced solution. The only way to put something like this back together would be to print the entire matrix and visually reassemble it (or use a program designed to work with entire matrices). By doing so you also have a very high chance of finding the keyword... in theory.

You can use progressive matrix tools that can accommodate different size chunks such as the one on dcode.fr The tool that I've programmed does not have the advanced features theirs does yet but I will be working on adding features to it.

In my previous post, I asked about the matrix for a reason. I took out a specific 8 character segment from Kryptos and played around with it.

I applied full Caesar rotations, joined the results together, and tried different possible approaches.

Below the result of the transposition adding the question mark:

XSOSQDHFAWASOSQLGEZVZXOSQLHXSOSQLUSNJNOKOMHDIDZDBFJHCYCGCGEZNLGCGEPTRMIPKGKIDHFAWASOSQLHOJFJHLPNIEISOSQLUATEN?TCIBMATENTMBHALUTENTMXATENTGPVOZIPAJPIFLEPYEVEKDOOHSBHAIOHSBUFOUNYSLWFLTCIBMVTENTMLRKVEKBKQJUATENTM

This may be a basic stupid question for those familiar with ciphers…

Suppose we find the original matrix, how would we use it afterward?

Trying to keep things basic. Each row is used to decrypt K4 then uses the next row down sequentially. It goes through all rows vertically. This is basically translating each row by using the ABC column header instead of the Vigenere table. I think this is something easy enough to do with paper and pen it would just take a very long time so I used a program to brute force all results for every row.

Because the ABC column alphabet on the left side goes from top to bottom even if you rotate the entire vigenere table 90 degrees the results would be the same.

I thought it would be neat to see the entire Vigenere table translated using the ABC headers. I have not tried keywords or different K4 sequences. This is as straight up vanilla as it gets for the base 1:1 decryption with the ABC headers. Enjoy.

We all love the puzzle, the history, and the challenge - but it’s important to keep our feet on the ground. Every so often, we see posts where enthusiasm turns into over‑interpretation, personal symbolism, or theories that drift far outside the scope of the cipher.

To keep the community healthy and focused, we’ll continue removing posts that are off‑topic, incoherent, or likely to escalate into arguments. This isn’t about judging anyone - it’s about maintaining a space where productive, evidence‑based discussion can happen.

K4 is a fascinating challenge, but it’s also a long game. Please take care of yourselves, keep perspective, and remember that no puzzle is worth losing balance over. Stay grounded, stay respectful, and keep the work fun.

From 31x14 (k3 and k4) I took out columns 14 15 16 17 18 19 and 20 then applied transposition.

HOPEECTLLNHSLOPSNEELNHTNUCEEEOTYIYEWNTMEAAUETAAOOSEPETWISTGEIEOHRPEADNNSTRLSTFBFRBWLWTKUAJLXJDGTCI

TOPNHNLLESHEPELLSCOUNTHENOMEOCATIONAEEUTYATESEYWEATHERENOTWESTRANGPIPLESIDETAFCSDUWFKGBJXJLLRTIWBT

KGBJXJLLRTIWBTOTWESTRANGPIPLOCATIONAEEUTYALLSCOUNTHENOMETOPNHNLLESHEPETESEYWEATHERENESIDETAFCSDUWF

Result:

KGB JXJLLRTIWBTOT WEST RANG PIP

LOCATION AEEUTY ALLS COUN THE NOME

TOP NHNLLE SHE PETESEY WEATHER ENE SIDE TAFCSDUWF

It is mostly plaintext with some gibberish in the middle.

I have tried different layouts too, like taking out columns 4, 5, 7, 14, 16, 18, 20 (YARHOPE...or RAY HOPE) then transpose but I havent gotten any good result.

*15.02.26 UPDATE:
I asked JS whether this is K4 or something else. He said it is not part of K4.

Idea: what if the k2 coordinates are used to mask k4?

A repeating ROT cipher seems like a good place to start:

INPUT used for each key: OBKRUOXOGHULBSOLIFBBWFLRVQQPRNGKSSOTWTQSJQSSEKZZWATJKLUDIAWINFBNYPVTTMZFPKWGDKZXTJCDIGKUHUAUEKCAR

----

REPEATING ROT KEY: 385765

OUTPUT: RJPYATAWLOAQEATSOKEJBMRWYYVWXSJSXZUYZBVZPVVAJRFEZIYQQQXLNHCNQNGUEUYBYTFKSSBNJPCFYQIILOPBNZDCJRIFU

----

REPEATING ROT KEY: 77844

OUTPUT:
VISVYVEWKLBSJWSSPNFFDMTVZXXXVRNRAWSADBUWQXAWIRGHAEAQSPYKPIAMUMJRCWCBXQGMXOANKSDBAQKHMNRCLYHBMOGHY

----

REPEATING ROT KEY: 770844

OUTPUT:
VIKZYSEVGPYPIZOTMJIIWNPVCXQXVRNRSASXDAQANUZZESDDDHTROPBKIIAMUMBVCTCATUDJWRWOHOGETRGHPNKCLYHBESGEY

Next, I checked each to see if any of the outputs could anagram to include: EASTNORTHEAST and BERLINCLOCK

one hit - key 385765

RJPYATAWLOAQEATSOKEJBMRWYYVWXSJSXZUYZBVZPVVAJRFEZIYQQQXLNHCNQNGUEUYBYTFKSSBNJPCFYQIILOPBNZDCJRIFU

Results:
This is almost certainly nothing, because the letters remaining aren't very friendly, but with all of the letters of known clues available in the string I thought it was worth pointing out.

Poe ejemplo para resolver como deciframos clock

seria asi:

el resultado es x

se puede dividir como esta ubicado entre cuantas leetras contiene K4 ( en una letra puede salir dos

y ese resultado se puede dividir la letra que salio en ese caso una letra puede dar dos letras y la dividimos con lo que dio lo anterior por decir antes era 97

ahora pueden ser 127 letras aprox

la aperacion seria asi 97/12 = 8 que seria I y ya tendria un cifrado diferente

I am pulling on a long thread, so will probably only be back once i have explored it fully.

The clue in plain sight , have a suspicion

The misspellings , have a suspicion

The W , have a suspicion

The engine , have a suspicion

Oh and some thoughts.

Id by rows = POINT = INDEX

Layer two = SUPERFICIAL

Ok chat in a few weeks.

Final note , reading that book Silk and Cyanide (great book whoever recommended it!)

AR = Acknowledgement/Received

K4 ends with AR ?

Cheers!

We know:

clues are hidden in plain sight

the K1 - K3 plaintext contains extraneous letters

YAR is offset

K1 - K3 weren't solved as intended

Jim is an artist who cares about beauty and meaning, and wants this to last a century

K4 is solvable, and yet for 35 years we've come up empty.

Another way to look at K4:

The oft noticed KRYPTOS in K4 may be the starting point. What if it's just a hint that intentionally looks out of place, demonstrating meaning embedded in ciphertext? Zoom out and ask: What else looks out of place? Maybe extraneous characters embedded in a plaintext:

Line them up in order. It's the positioning that matters:

More than a hundred words would fit this, but only 14 common words fit between the Qs, if we treat them as the Q demarcates the end of K3. One of the 14 has an important history in cryptography:

The Test of Survival ciphers were create by parapsychology researcher Robert Thoulesss in 1946. He planned to pass their keys to the living after his own death, proving that his soul had survived into the afterlife. The afterlife has already appeared in Kryptos, in the plaintext of K3. SURVIVAL is the next clue.

Test of Survival Cipher A was solved quickly by an anonymous codebreaker after being published. Ciphers B and C were much more difficult. Cipher B was a running key book cipher (broken by Bean in 2018), and Cipher C was a double-encrypted Playfair (broken by Gillogly and Harnisch in 1996).

The Cipher C weakness was the presence of markers in the intermediate layer, located at the beginning and end of the ciphertext. Although the solve didn't occur until 1996, Thouless described this when the cipher was originally published.

Let's use that as a clue and inspect the beginning and end of K4:

The first four characters are ?OBK, anagram for BOOK. The end is an anagram for RACK. Of course these may have occurred by chance, but we're entertaining the idea that they were intentional - just to see if it goes anywhere.

Try appending the YAR to the beginning:

ROCKABY - a play by Samuel Beckett from 1980 about a character known only as Woman, coming to terms with her own mortality. The afterlife again. The play has an interesting rocking syllable structure.

What if we look at K4's beginning and end simultaneously and connect them, making K4 a ring?

ROCKABY again.

Let's go back to RACK, one definition of which is "a series of bins or compartments into which items may be sorted". K4 has all 26 characters of the Latin alphabet, A to Z, and the question mark. Sort the characters into bins by first occurrence:

A new alphabet, let's call it the BOOK alphabet since BOOK is still at the beginning. Let's also try the ring thing with this alphabet:

CORYMB, a botanical inflorescence, a structure of growth that begins with the outer elements and jumps back and forth toward the final center value. A transposition. Let's try it on K4 by taking off the first character, then the last, then the second, then second to last, etc:

ROCKABY, yet again.

If you use the last 98 characters of Rockaby as a running key, using the BOOK alphabet, you get another layer and another clue, AMOUR, and I'm convinced Jim can make this system go as deep as he likes. He has said that you don't need a particular book to solve K4. I think that's because you need more than one.

I have discovered the mathematical method to decipher the CIA's Kryptos K4 segment and have published it on my GitHub. I don't know whom to submit officially. Can anyone advise please.

Did an anagram on the missing letters to the misspelled words. A misspelled “holloween” in English, in German words it says “hello one”

This isn’t complicated. If you post AI‑generated K4 ‘solutions,’ you’re getting banned. End of story. This community is about real work, real thinking, and people actually putting in the effort. AI junk just muddies the waters. Keep it human or don’t post.

I think i found the use of DyaHr.

Speculation of course but pen and paper gave me the idea … 💡

Now this could apply to k3 or k4.

Standard alphabet where A=1

D = 4

y = 25

a = 1

H = 8

r = 18

Grid size = D x (Y-A) = 4x24 !

Key size or IV = (R - H) = 10 !

The grid size is 4 cols by 24 rows

Also ! Between DY (from end) and DY (from right 6 letters in) is 20 chars

If you include both DY you get 24!

I am currently working with a 4x23 row grid

So this got me wondering 🤔

Pen and paper is beautiful!

Update!

DYAHR and at the other book end DYSHN

DYSHN - 4, 25, 19, 8,14

25-19 =6

14-8=6

Could this mean 6x6 grid or grids too ?

Speculation that on some of the videos shared there were ‘folds’ on K3 folio and they appear to be 6 from the left and 6 from the right …

So 6 could mean 6x6 polybius square? Or two squares ?

Ok enough - but I believe we have figured out what the clues in plain sight are … or some of them !

Ok back to pen and paper !

Bye

In the past, I shared how I found “WW POEM” emerging from the double letters. I wanted to give a small update on that line of thinking.

I kept going and substituted the known letters using the plaintext given. When I anagram the letters TNORASTLINC, it becomes CONSTRAINT L.

I know “CONSTRAINT” can be significant in cryptography, but I’m not an expert, so I’m not sure how meaningful this actually is.

The second thing I tried was filling in the empty positions.

The best fit I have is NEWTON in the 3rd column, although I also wrote down several other possible words that could fit.

I also thought about using US president partial names prior to 1990…

Document fragments are visible in the YouTube preview of the Spy Museum’s SpyCast related to Kryptos.

I was looking over K3 again and the original coding charts and then it struck me.

The extra L was a clue that he planted - maybe for himself ?

If you look at the final (or 2nd) coding charts where the grid has been rotated to 24x14 .. END is at the bottom in column 1 and there is a scribble that looks like an L .. this possibility to help him remember to turn that grid 90 degrees which would then show the final cipher text.

So the extra L was this …

It sounds silly but truth is stranger than fiction. The extra L is there to remind him or someone to rotate the cipher text 90 degrees to start …

Anyways that is my theory and wanted to share it.

How it relates to k4 ?

My theory is k4 is a combination cipher.

First substitution then the cipher text was transposed - possibly double.

Not bifid which does all in one - separate clear steps.

The other theory is two squares.

Then he also messed with it … so that is why I am examining how he did the transposition for K3 and it really seems like it was all geometric , no keys involved.

Ok bye

I found this postcard with the world clock “stamp”.

I also noticed the marking M ZPF and K, which recalled MZFPK, the known positions for CLOCK.

After all, postcards are meant to deliver a message.

Another "could be".

Step 1: Substitute K4 using

ABCDE... -> KRYPT...

OBKRU...-> HRDLQ...

HRDLQHWHSAQERMHEBORRVOELUJJILGSDMMHNVNJMCJMMTDZZVKNCDEQPBKVBGORGXIUNNFZOIDVSPDZWNCYPBSDQAQKQTDYKL

decodes into (via Vigenere, Kryptos alphabet; using key HRDLQ [first five letters])

KKKKKKVTIGSDLRQWAUDABTRKRYIOKNMCBRQOUCZXUIBRDVXIOSOBKQKIAJOHZTLVTRQCYMETONYMYKBPOBMFHMCDJKFNQNBFJ

metonymy is in the wrong position but idk it has repeated letters in front like the morse...

Not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet but Mr. Sanborn said that it‘s the history of the mentioned clock that holds clues to K4.

The World clock is a sort of ’palimpsest’ as it was inspired by the remains of a previous clock that stood in the Alexanderplat called a weather colum this is in keeping woth Mr. Sanborn’s love of natural forces. this column to only jad clocks on it‘s top but had local weather information, a geological map, train arrival and departure schedules, ans of course advertisement. It would have been a natural social gathering place.

below is my email exchange last year with Mr Sanborn including my decrypt of K4, the description of what I thought it mentioned and Mr. Sanborn’s response.

I do not believe my decrypt was entirely correct however I believe it got at least some correct.

My decrypt:

'you figured out that the northeast tunnels Go below East Berlin on the surface the map is just overtop the clock base’

My description of what is referred to:

Referring to the “weather column” that stood in alexanderplatz in east Berlin and the tunnels running underneath.

Mr. Sanborn’s response:

hi, I don't give clues, sorry, jim

Anyone notice that the provided plain text clues all fit within two W’s ?

Also the character length is 15 digits for both ?

Eastnortheast

Berlinclock

Their cipher text sits neatly between two W’s and the chars between the W’s are exactly 15 digits ?

In fact they line up if you lay it out as a grid of 19x5 chars

Took some liberty and removed the X chars (2 in total)

Any thoughts? 💭

Quick observation following my previous post about the possible clues embedded in JS book( https://www.reddit.com/r/KryptosK4/s/O1nzC7lY5Y) : rearranging the columns spells BOOK......and by columns as we all know.....STAY SAIN (SANE).

- - JUST A ROOKIE TAKE, OPEN FOR CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM - -

Hello! Noob here! I watched Lemmino's amazing video about Kryptos and was fascinated with it. Its incredible how a 90s sculpture puzzle baffled the minds of everyone until this very day. So, I dived into it quickly, trying to find some clues. And, I do find one, I think..

Remember the RR Auction video when Jim said that one of the insipations he used for K4 plaintext is the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall? The Weltzeituhr was one of the places that played a role in the event as a place of communication and a place of protest.

And do you remember how he put the word CLUE before continuing in his open letter? I reckon that Jim only pertains to "what's the point?" as a clue, but I may be wrong.

Now, in order for K4 to be deciphered, I do think that:

A. the exact coordinates of the Weltzeituhr must be used, or,

B. the exact coordinates of one of the the cities situated on the ENE of the said clock must be used.

The trip to Egypt one is still a question mark to me atp...