http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Pd_cia_krypt-lg.jpg

Kryptos is a sculpture located on the grounds of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, created by the sculptor James Sanborn.

http://www.impactlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/sanborn.jpg

Installed in 1990, its thousands of characters contain encrypted messages, of which three have been solved (so far). There is still a fourth section at the bottom consisting of 97 or 98 characters which remains uncracked.

http://www.impactlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ff_kryptos_f.jpg

The main sculpture is made of red and green slate, white quartz, petrified wood, lodestone and copper, and is located in the northwest corner of the New Headquarters Building courtyard, outside of the Agency cafeteria. The cost of the sculpture was $250,000.

http://www.elonka.com/kryptos/pics/images/Artistic-Enigma.jpg

The name Kryptos comes from the Greek word for "hidden", and the theme of the sculpture is "intelligence gathering." The most prominent feature is a large vertical S-shaped copper screen resembling a scroll, or piece of paper emerging from a computer printer, covered with characters comprising encrypted text. The characters consist of the 26 letters of the standard Roman alphabet and question marks cut out of the copper. This "inscription" contains four separate enigmatic messages, each apparently encrypted with a different cipher.

http://www.impactlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ff_kryptos3_f.jpg

For further info:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-05/ff_kryptos
Source(s):
http://elonka.com/kryptos/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos
http://www.impactlab.com/2009/05/04/kryptos-code-the-cia-cant-crack/


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