An open letter to Jim Sanborn,
You are at a position in your life where the choices you make will define your legacy. I want to be clear that the Kryptos community hears your complaints and concerns. In that same breath: no one feels that auctioning off K4’s solution is the correct approach.
In your recent Wired interview you make statements roughly that the worth of this project could be over a quarter million dollars. Unfortunately, those sort of statements have painted a picture of a man willing to trade his legacy for one final payout. There has also been a lot of speculation that this is an attempt for a large cashout knowing someone is close to a solution and thus sustainability of the Kryptos fee system would end.
All of this has given off the impression that you don’t care about Kryptos, the community, the art, or your legacy. It gives off the impression you’re only in this now for the money.
So, no need to complain without some sort of proposal so here it is;
Give the secrets of Kryptos to an individual [Edward Scheidt, Elonka Dunin, Jim Gillogly, probably anyone attending your yearly Kryptos parties. I am sure there are many more suited for this and willing]. And then give the Kryptos fee system [your paid correspondence system] over to a cryptographer you trust to vet answers [something that can be done without a solution unless you also plan to confirm steps]. You’ve been floated battling AI with AI responses, and I am not going to do that here. What I am going to say is you have the talent within your circle to never look at another Kryptos message again. Your frustrations with computers and AI doesn’t make this statement untrue, a standard sha256 salt+pepper system could’ve solved a lot of your problems with the fee system and floods of answers 20+ years ago. So we can’t pretend there weren’t alternatives, there are many. You have opted not to seek out alternatives or have brushed them aside for so long that there is little time left to consider alternatives. I hope you know they still exist.
You, Jim Sanborn, have the ability to leave this to a number of individuals who would joyfully carry the flag. There are volunteers that would gladly operate the trust [which would be ideal for you since many government based trusts may not allow the monetary compensation you’re needing]. You can change your legacy from that of a sellout to someone who actually stood by those inspirational statements of what art was for and what it meant to you to just make someone sit and think for even ten minutes.
You’ve all got us thinking now, but not about art. About a timer. About a puzzle whose purpose and intent was secrecy, the chain of custody of information, and the greater world of espionage. You’ve shown in this interview that government secrets can be sold, and keeping them really only matters until you get a big enough paycheck.
I don’t think that’s right. I am not a fan of who you are now, but I admire the man you were. And let me say I am not the right person to help, but I am the right person to openly scream into the void of how wrong this is. You stand as one of the most well known abstract sculptors of our time. You owned Zolo, a successful restaurant true to the themes of Kryptos! And at the end of it all you had set up passive income for decades through the answer fee system attached to Kryptos. You were the American dream. None of this even touches on the value of your vast art collection that has been publicly documented over the years. And yet, the community would still understand a statement of ‘I am struggling financially’ even if those things might not reconcile personally for me. But that’s not what you said in the interview.
Instead you mentioned that this money would be a fallback, and some of it may even be donated to charity. Please know that for many these things do not add up, if you are concerned of a medical emergency you should not donating any of the money. That said, it was always an option to field this problem to the wider community, as I’ve no doubt you would’ve received a vast fundraising effort from a more blunt statement of ‘I have liquidated my assets and am in need of more to live a comfortably retired life despite my earlier successes.’ And all of that could easily be done while getting Kryptos out of your hands. You are not a failure for asking for help.
You are many things impolite that won’t be said here though. And you are because you turned your back on a community you curated that paid your bills for decades, or at least kept your pockets well lined. Your final sendoff to them is to sell it off, not ensure its success. This is why people are so disappointed in you.
This is why the community would like you to bring this to a trustworthy individual before destroying chain of custody in an auction. We ask you to consider your legacy, the people you inspire, and the messages sent when government information becomes openly commodified: even when the nature isn’t classified.
With respect, love, and frustration: Your actions now directly reflect your morality, quality, and character as a person and an artist. I’m not going to sugarcoat that for you. This is not an issue of legality but who you have become as a person. We are all disappointed and hope you take this opportunity to do better by the community you’ve been curating for thirty five years. We hope you make the choice not to turn your back on the people who’ve supported you for decades. It is the kind of redemption story we all want to see.
- Elodine & [some] of the Kryptos community
TL;DR: “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”