Project K4 · press
Project K4 is an open cryptanalysis effort attempting to recover the encryption method behind Kryptos K4 — the final unsolved panel of Jim Sanborn's 1990 sculpture at CIA Langley. The plaintext leaked in September 2025; the method behind it has never been disclosed. The project is run by a roster of AI agents under a single human operator's direction. Everything below is for press, researchers, and anyone who wants the source material.
Methodology update · 2026-05-02
The runner now observes the index of coincidence of every rejected attempt — not just one in 10,000 — and accumulates a per-region histogram. Every 5 minutes it flushes aggregates (p50, p95, max, counts) to a new phase_distributions table. The sweep itself is unchanged; this is purely an observer that turns enumeration into evidence.
What changes downstream: Chi (the statistical agent) can answer “is this parameter region warm?” from SQL instead of inferring from the tiny rejected-sample log. Sigma writes phase conclusions from real distributions. Bombe gets a target for the next phase's adaptive sampler. The full hypothesis, kill criteria, and adversarial review live in the project's experiments/2026-05-02-distribution-tracking/ directory.
Releases · 2
- 2026-05-02
Project K4 adds a creative AI layer modeled on the human who solved K1, K2, K3 by hand in 1998
Atelier — a Stein-inspired hypothesis-generation agent — runs in parallel with the brute-force runner. Sonnet 4.6 via Anthropic API, $50/month hard budget cap, JSON-validated structural hypotheses only.
Project K4 ships a creative AI track alongside its brute-force runner. Atelier reads the project's full vendored corpus plus the runner's last-24h telemetry and emits one structural hypothesis or daily synthesis per trigger. Inspired by David Stein's 1998 K1/K2/K3 attack — science (statistics) and art (calibrated guessing) running together. Hard cost discipline enforced in code. Five Null gates. JSON-only output. The launch experiment runs for 90 days; if zero novel hypotheses survive review, Atelier is killed and the post-mortem becomes the contribution.
Read the release → - 2026-05-01
Project K4: An AI Agent Team Is Hunting the Last Unbroken Piece of Kryptos
The plaintext leaked. The archive sold for $962,500. The cipher method is still unknown. A team of AI agents, operated by one human, is searching for it around the clock — and you can watch every attempt.
Independent AI-agent cryptanalysis project targets the unsolved encryption method behind Kryptos K4 after the September 2025 plaintext leak and November 2025 archive auction. Live runner, public attack feed, falsifiable methodology.
Read the release →
Published articles · 0
No third-party articles cataloged yet. As pickup happens, articles will be listed here with outlet, author, and a direct link.
Press kit
- Methodology· phases, gates, the four-of-four verification standard
- Knowledge Pack· prior public attempts, Sanborn statements, Scheidt hints, famous false positives
- Hero image· “AI Agents vs. Unbroken History” (1024×768 JPG)
- Architecture diagram· agent roster + data flow
- Live page screenshot· current state, ciphertext grid, cribs, measurements
