[themafia]

Make the auction include the physical piece of art itself. Then you're buying a tangible and transferable asset. I think the CIA has enough money it can endeavor to replace it. What value does a cracked puzzle even have to them?

[JackFr]

It always bothered me because cryptography isn’t the CIA’s thing. Spies and analysis are their thing. Code breaking is the NSA

[throwaway48476]

Government agencies do not have cleanly separated roles. They tend to grow and agglomerate capabilities to maximally soak up budget allocation. NSA is primarily SIGINT.