There is no evidence to support this hypothesis. I see the C in UAUEKCAR as being, in fact, the second “C” in the word “cloCk”. I let you devise the way to get to this, implies the use of yet another clue (massthewax) and understand to what it refers.
But you are right when you try to make use of the “layertwo” clue, it is probably the most important of all…
>>>>>>>>>>>>> To KryptosFan :
Your site was the best designed on this topic, by far, much better than Elonka’s one. If you are still interested in this quest, maybe could we share some information and have a bit of brainstorming ?
I think many people quickly got out of the step by not showing respect to the (fairly simple) constraints :
* it has been done with a pencil and a paper, it is crackable the same way
* the clues are ALL in plain sight, and NO clue serve another purpose than cracking K4. This implies that NO part of any PT (K1 -> K3) contain any clue.
* K4 is most probably made of two distinct parts (easy to see where to cut, knowing that “when the wise man points at the moon, the imbecile examines the finger”)
* A transposition is involved (double one AFAIK *2 *2) or can be replaced nicely by a skip just as in K3.
* Kryptos is NOT the only alphabet you have to consider (TBLASTXTHIS :p)
* there is no “error” in the design, even IQLUSION has its own purpose (easy to prove, still difficult to figure its proper use).
* K4 is not a Vigenere, nor Quag II -> Quag IV. There is another layer of encryption (masking) involved, the only one that I cannot figure (at all) at this point. 😦
* BERLIN & CLOCK are part of the PT, they are NO CLUES (their meaning is pointless, at least).
* I would not be very surprised if the next clue was to be HOMOGEN at position 85. Maybe around 20 Nov. 2018 ?
To put it in other words, I made some interesting discoveries which are far from delirant, but I am seriously stuck in a dead end not knowing the masking technique (just as you). At this time, I turn to steganography, even if it is not precisely my cup of tea (I hate it just as every cryptographer hates anagrams).
You have now my e-mail address, in case.
Philippe