Codes and Ciphers’ by John Laffin

Did he read (Z)this book ?

I dont know much about the zodiac but the cypher interests me. Particularly the mis spelled words. Seems to me paradice is spelt wrong purposefully. As in a pair of dice. In the code book on page 9 we have."the dice are on the table" a d-day coded message. Im probably reading too much into this but the decoded zodiac cypher may not be fully decoded. We may have some plain text but we may still have a cypher hiding in plain sight. The decoded message looks like rambling zodiac garbage (slaves and gas chambers for example) but it reads like perhaps an Abbott Trithemius cypher like on page page 21

Another good one is 1939 "Elementary Cryptanalysis" by Helen Gaines. It even mentions PARADISE keyword in couple of places.

Interesting!
I clipped them here:
https://imgur.com/a/x1Q1lHE

Dave do you have an overlay on how it shows in the original cipher, I.e the original 340 with the substituted below like what the hardens did?

Codes and Ciphers’ by John Laffin

Did he read (Z)this book ?

I dont know much about the zodiac but the cypher interests me. Particularly the mis spelled words. Seems to me paradice is spelt wrong purposefully. As in a pair of dice. In the code book on page 9 we have."the dice are on the table" a d-day coded message. Im probably reading too much into this but the decoded zodiac cypher may not be fully decoded. We may have some plain text but we may still have a cypher hiding in plain sight. The decoded message looks like rambling zodiac garbage (slaves and gas chambers for example) but it reads like perhaps an Abbott Trithemius cypher like on page page 21

Do you have a hard copy of this book? Just curious

No…i have read this copy which someone from here has uploaded to google drive

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx2ZxP … RqMTg/view

1. How much technical expertise was needed to make the 340?

I am not too sure if actually required some technical expertise at all.

He was obviously aware of the method of homophonic substitution cipher seen in the first crypto and was somewhat disappointed of the fast solve. Here is what I think he did:

1. Write the new plain text.

2. Invent the new substitution scheme.

3. Rewrite all the text in encrypted form with no transposition.

He obviously likes to write in 17 character wide lines and intended to do so in the second crypto also. Maybe he has a drawn grid with "boxes" on the first draft of the crypto.

4. Write the first character as normal top left, but then thinking somewhat like "now this will teach them a lesson!" and jumps down one line and two to the right for next character.

5. Repeats, until he hits the end of his 17 character grid. Loops up and continues until all the grids are occupied. Then draws the next block and repeats the process.

I believe he wanted the crypto to be solved. The message inside indicates this, referring to recent events like the TV show.

I do not think he had the insight to understand how extremely difficult this would be for anyone else to backtrack the "logic" of his grid layout. To me, this speaks against him having some advanced training or knowledge in cryptographic.

No…i have read this copy which someone from here has uploaded to google drive

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx2ZxP … RqMTg/view

Ah, was just curious because I have been collecting pre Zodiac published crypto books. This one in particular I just purchased as I worked my way through the weeds of the various sellers. Trying to get Hard Cover books in the best shape as First edition/First printings with Dust Jackets when available is a bit time consuming and actually kind of fun.

I do not think he had the insight to understand how extremely difficult this would be for anyone else to backtrack the "logic" of his grid layout.

This is an interesting point. I’m no cryptology expert, much less familiar with that era, but I did take a graduate-level cryptology class in college in the 90s (wrote a paper about WWII & ENIGMA) and work in software development. It does seem like he rather "amped up" his encryption after the first time, and seemingly drastically underestimated the difficulty of decryption. It’s like if your kid beat the neighbor kid 1-on-1, so you line up LeBron James for his next opponent. Even with my limited knowledge, if I had written that cipher, I wouldn’t have expected a solution to be found.

There doesn’t seem to be anything in the message that is even worthy of being encrypted in the first place, so why hide it so well? Perhaps he was just acquainted with the process, or following examples, and didn’t really "get" cryptology. Further evidence of this lack of sophistication might be the two other short ciphers, which are so short as to make a decryption effort essentially useless.

I do not think he had the insight to understand how extremely difficult this would be for anyone else to backtrack the "logic" of his grid layout.

This is an interesting point. I’m no cryptology expert, much less familiar with that era, but I did take a graduate-level cryptology class in college in the 90s (wrote a paper about WWII & ENIGMA) and work in software development. It does seem like he rather "amped up" his encryption after the first time, and seemingly drastically underestimated the difficulty of decryption. It’s like if your kid beat the neighbor kid 1-on-1, so you line up LeBron James for his next opponent. Even with my limited knowledge, if I had written that cipher, I wouldn’t have expected a solution to be found.

There doesn’t seem to be anything in the message that is even worthy of being encrypted in the first place, so why hide it so well? Perhaps he was just acquainted with the process, or following examples, and didn’t really "get" cryptology. Further evidence of this lack of sophistication might be the two other short ciphers, which are so short as to make a decryption effort essentially useless.

"There doesn’t seem to be anything in the message that is even worthy of being encrypted in the first place" –

It’s a really interesting point. The Zodiac could simply have conveyed the messages contained within the 408 & 340 cyphers via his letters.

Which leads to some casual observations, intended as more FYI than OMG.

1. The end goal of the cyphers was not the messages contained within.
2. The cyphers were more symbolic of the Zodiac’s personality and his propensity towards gamesmanship.
3. Is there a substantive difference between the messages in the letters vs. the messaging in the cyphers?

Much of the messaging in the cyphers is abstract – "thrilling experience", "getting your rocks off ", "reborn in paradice", "collecting of slaves", "afterlife", "send me to paradise", "death".

The letters are more factual -"I am the killer" "Here is a cypher", "I shall state some facts", "The police shall never catch me", "I have left no fingerprints". Although, in the 340 cypher, a couple of "factual" comments are included: "That wasn’t me on the TV show" and "I am not afraid of the gas chamber."

4. A lack of factual clues in the cyphers, coupled with his potential lack of sophistication in cryptology, could mean we can dismiss there being any cross-referencing/cross-messaging between cyphers. I.E. Maybe we can dismiss the idea that the 340 cypher, for instance, contains directions/pointers on how to solve the Z13 cypher (as has always been a possibility.) Or:

5. Does the solving of the 340 cypher reveal any "pattern" of coding/construct that may assist with his mindset in constructing the remaining, unsolved cyphers?

"so why hide it so well? Perhaps he was just acquainted with the process, or following examples, and didn’t really "get" cryptology. Further evidence of this lack of sophistication might be the two other short ciphers, which are so short as to make a decryption effort essentially useless."

Could one not actually argue that his lack of sophistication with cryptology means the remaining cyphers – in particular, the Z13 – do in fact have a solution? In other words, he was not aware, or wouldn’t have had the foresight to appreciate, that a shorter cypher tended to preclude any ability to be able to be solved. He would, therefore, not have been deterred when constructing the name cypher.

Just food for thought. Much like user fraudatty, interested to see what we can glean from this fairly monumental moment.

Congratulations to David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke.

Very good news. The zodiac keeps alluding to Paradice. Paradise California has had a lot of murders unsolved.

doranchak, do you have any plans for working on Z13 and/or Z32 in the future? just curious

Might try out a few ideas. But not really planning much. There’s not much we can do with such short ciphers. But who knows? Maybe some interesting ideas will emerge.

Dave, do you think that the 340 may contain more messages? If so, do you plan to keep working on it? There probably has to be something to these patterns, right?

So, I happened across this info-graphic / animation on the cipher solution. It’s pretty well done, overall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX0XP3d0q2Q

Yeah that is pretty cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX0XP3d0q2Q

Yeah that is pretty cool.

Really cool!!! Mr Traveller1st, could you provide a direct view on the board please ??

Looks just like us.

Looks just like us.

Just a little Cipher Humor.