As a non-crypto guy, my reaction is that Z did not believe his encryption of the 340 was all that difficult. He made a reference to a recent TV show and denied being the person who had called in, as if the code would be broken fairly quickly. Or at least that it would not take 50 years. To then use what he thought was a simple code to break (in HIS mind, at least) to encrypt other codes does not seem to make sense.

Mike

Also important to remember that the shorter the code, the harder to solve. A question for Doranchak, how would we know(maybe we really can not) if this Z13 solution(or any other proposed one that fits)is the right one or not?

Correct, the significance (particularly after so many elaborate steps) of the result KAYR is not very high. For instance, had the cipher been longer and the result of said solution been ‘my name iz larence kayr’ it becomes much more significant. KAYR after so many steps and interpretations is unfortunately not a satisfactory result in my opinion. It is also completely lacking in cryptologic methods used in the previous two Zodiac ciphers that were cracked; in this proposed solution Fayzr jumps from the Z340 key, to giving the letters numbers, incorporate the Zodiac dial, to then using some sort (very loose) interpretations of the return-to-zero inverted and finally cherry picking the configuration for the Trifid.

I like the creative approach, and work that Fayzr has, clearly, put into this but I don’t think this proposed solution is correct.

There is a point that has been mentioned by several people, it is the successive use of various encryption techniques. I don’t know what is the rationale to say that makes the solution weak.

On the other hand, what I do know is that this kind of ciphering is called "cascade encryption, cascade ciphering, multiple encryption, or superencipherment" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_encryption ), and that it is particularly appropriate given the importance of the information which is hidden in the Z13.

But I am not a cipher expert and would be grateful if any could give their point of view on this.

Because by adding layers, you could observe the results layer after layer and figure out if there is any relevance to your favourite subject (or any subject for that matter), if there isn’t you could either carry on or think of another layer and repeat the same process. The steps that you have taken (aside from the Z340 key) are quite arbitrary, and I know we need to play around with arbitrary options to try and solve this, but adding layer after layer of arbitrary chosen steps and then reach KAYR as a solution is just not satisfactory enough to claim that this code has been cracked.

I am also quite interested in what causes you to state that you have cracked these codes? As I said before, if you are really sure then please do share your results with the FBI cryptology unit.

Also important to remember that the shorter the code, the harder to solve. A question for Doranchak, how would we know(maybe we really can not) if this Z13 solution(or any other proposed one that fits)is the right one or not?

Or to put it more precisely, the shorter the cyphertext, the easier it is to find a solution, which makes it more difficult to know whether it has been solved.

I never liked Fayzr’s Z13 solution. When it was all said and done, it was the Labor Day find in the Z32 along with a Lake Tahoe coordinates that I found somewhat compelling, not very compelling, but more so than most of the solutions we’ve seen.

Labor Day had a whiff of the Jim Dunbar reference that unraveled the 408. It just stood out as being very specific and different to the generic "Zodiac" words that people seem to find in these ciphers. I also felt that the fact that the coordinates lined up with Lake Tahoe and the same solution contained Labor Day, seemed to mutually verify one another.

Fayzr claimed to be unaware of both the significance of Lake Tahoe and Labor Day, which I took as a somewhat positive sign. The solution to the Z13 on the other hand was far more arbitrary and the result was not nearly as satisfying. I also put little stock in the Hell Hole interpretation. Really it’s that combination of Lake Tahoe and Labor day that I find curious. This whole thing needs proper commentary from the relevant experts. I have no experience with ciphers, and I’m woeful at mathematics.

The Z340 and the Z408 had legible, intelligible, coherent messages. I do think that the balance of probality is against the Z32 and Z13 having cryptic, difficult to understand, or otherwise obscure solutions. This solution unfortunately falls somewhat into the category of the latter IMO.

Further research is needed.

My favourite solution to the Z13 is still "Alfred E Neuman". It’s a culturally relevant time capsule just like the Z340 turned out to be.

My favourite solution to the Z13 is still "Alfred E Neuman".

Thank you. Of course Graysmith failed to credit me.

Sorry to get off the top of this thread . has anybody looked into the April 1970 #134 issue of mad magazine to see if anything zodiac relevant that could be in there ? There was a fake signature cover issue on some of them for the number issue .

I have an entire CD-ROM of those magazines. Didn’t find anything in that issue.

The difficulty with Z13 and Z32 is that they are so short, that so many thousands of solutions already fit them WITHOUT having to go through many steps. For example, simple substitution is sufficient to generate a huge pile of candidate solutions.

Since we can’t confirm that any of those thousands are correct, how can adding encryption/decryption steps raise our confidence of a solution?

Many people answer that question by adding a lot of coincidences or circumstantial evidence, which they think will somehow create evidence that is beyond the shadow of a doubt. But those two ciphers are already well within that shadow, long before imposing additional decryption steps that just serve to expand the reach of doubt.

Hey Dave just curious you and the team having any luck seeing if there’s any other layers to the 340 ? Thanks

Haven’t really looked too deeply yet into other layers of the 340. But it’s interesting to see what other people have been trying.

Very well put indeed, David. You’ve hit the nail on the head when you said "Those two ciphers are already well within that shadow, long before imposing addition decryption steps that just serve to expand the reach of doubt."

Also, if we are to believe Zodiac the Z32 probably contains a way to use the radians on the map; i.e. perhaps the sine of certain angles that need to be divided by the radian? Perhaps it would be interesting to look for 60 in that context, as for navigation the sine degrees were always divided by 60 (rather than 57 of the roughly 57°of a radian). Or even words like ‘cos’ and ‘sin’. Based on Zodiac’s clue for the Z32 going directly to geomagnetic coordinates does not seem right.