AK Wilks, Subject: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Sat Mar 06, 2010 10:36 am

For discussion of the 18 character unsolved portion at the end of the first Zodiac Code.

Proposed solutions, ideas and theories.

rand, Subject: The Minutemen   Sun Apr 04, 2010 11:26 am

Zodiac’s first cipher was sent in three parts to three different Bay Area papers. Here are the three parts of the cipher:
part 1: http://www.zodiackiller.com/VTHCipher.html
part 2: http://www.zodiackiller.com/VTHCipher.html
part 3: http://www.zodiackiller.com/ExaminerCipher.html

Zodiac said his identity (not name) would be known once police cracked the cipher. It wasn’t. For forty years people have believed that Z lied about this. IMO, he didn’t lie.
Notice that the last line of the cipher is not part of the message (it isn’t translated).
When translated it reads: EBEORIETEMETHHPITI with the E coming from the last character of the second to last line.

Gibberish, right? That’s what everyone has thought. But I believe that what Z did has not been understood. When it is, the last line, IMO, reads: THE MINU+EMEN with 5 extra symbols leftover that are not letters. When I say the last line reads, I mean the last line in the code part of the cipher, not the translation, which remains EBEORIETEMETHHPITI. Thus, Z’s identity is, as he said, in the code or cipher itself. But the code had to be cracked first, as he said, to see this. The trick is this:

What you do is take the translated letters — EBEORIETEMETHHPITI — and work backwards: that is, find the equivalents in the cipher for the letters. Of course, working backwards like this will give you exactly what the Zodiac orignally wrote on the last line. But it will also give you some other things as well.

Why? Because there are other characters that could have been used to yield the EBEORIETEMETHHPITI translation.

Why? Because some letters have two or more characters associated with them. When this is done, VOILA!, you get an anagram for +HE MINUTEMEN (a plus sign is used for one of the T’s) with six characters left over: BRMPII. (see below) All of the six characters are not letters, but rather shapes, e.g., V/+ ^. Thus, they cannot be used in the translation — a clever way for Z to say that only 12 of the 18 characters have meaning — the other five are filler to yield the rest of the 17-character line.
Thus,

OTEHTEIEEHET BRMPII (TRANSLATED LINE)
THEMINU+EMEN +^Q/> (CODE LINE)

The top line (which is the translation) is precisely the same as EBEORIETEMETHHPITI — just in a different order (because THE MINUTEMEN was anagrammed)
So Z’s identity was, IMO, revealed once the cipher was cracked..

Richard, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Sat Apr 23, 2011 11:21 am

Zodiac’s last 18 characters (in the 408 message) contain two doublings, so there are actually 16 different characters used. Had he simply wanted to fill in the last 18 spaces of his grid, he could have done so without repeating any characters. Both doublings were characters used to represent the letter "E".

But doubling his characters did not seem to matter to him in the previous message text. He did this numerous times, particularly when he would use two identical characters side by side to represent "LL" in the body of his message. It was through this doubling, and other common encryption patterns, that the Hardens were able to decode the message.

Looking at the last 18 DECODED characters, in the resultant 18 letters, one sees that there are 9 vowells; 5 of which are the letter "E". This is statistically too often to be random or simple coincidence. For randomness, one would expect only every fifth letter to be a vowell, not half of them. And why so many letter "E"s?

It is possible that the last 18 letters represent a phrase, with each decoded letter being the first letter of a word. Or it may be, as others have theorized, a scrambling of a word or words, or it could be a further encryption. It is also possible that the 18 characters/letters are simply filler used to make the 3rd part of his message come out to exactly 8 lines of 17 characters – equal to the other two portions which were mailed to other newspapers.

IF the final 18 characters represent a further encryption or code shift, I would look to the first or last few letters (of the 18) to be shift indicators, rather than part of the message text itself.

Regardless of any possible text meaning in the final 18 characters, I believe that their existance provides a strong clue into the thinking of the Zodiac, because of the resultant number pattern, that is his compulsion to write in exactly 17 character lines.

This indicates an obsession with the number 17 and with making everything precise and equal. He wrote his "408" message in three equal parts, each containing 8 lines of 17 characters. He later wrote his "340" message as a single document containing 20 lines of 17 characters, keeping the same previous characters from his "408" message, but adding exactly 17 more characters to the code.

The number 17 is a prime number (it can be divided only by itself and the number 1). It is the 7th prime number in sequence starting with the number 1.

Does anyone see any other patterns in any of his codes, clues, or plain text messages which contain the number 17?

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Sat Apr 23, 2011 11:36 am

Thats interesting. For those who don’t know, Richard is the person who discovered the pattern between + and – shift changes in the Kite – Wilks Proposed Solution to the Unsolved 18. Good job!

You can see the amazing results of and discussions based on thebigZ probability analysis of my Caesar Code solutions here:

http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … y-analysis

And a general Caesar Code analysis here:

http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … e-analysis

As for the issue of "17" – it is interesting.

Why did Zodiac pick 17? I don’t know. Gareth Penn has a book called "Times 17", and he has elaborate theories about his suspect Michael O’Hare. But O’Hare was not the Zodiac and I think Penn’s theories are nonsense. Others disagree.

The first and last names of my suspect add up to 17. (With middle initial it is 18).

You mention that 17 is a prime number, and that it is the 7th prime after 1. Those would be 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and 17? So keep in mind 17 is a PRIME NUMBER:

E…B…E…O…R…I….E…T…E…M…E…T…H…H…P…I….T…I

…One B
…One O
.Three T ‘s
…Two H ‘s
….One P
…One R
.Three I ‘s
..One M
..Five E ‘s

These are the famous last 18 letters that appear at the end of the Harden solution. Coincidence or intended, they can spell the mathematical command "BOTH PRIME".

Since people typically sign their name at the END of a letter, the police and others felt this 18 letter string might be an anagram of the killers name and/or require a second stage decode to reveal the killers name.

Over the years there has been much other speculation as to their possible meaning, from "Robert Emmet The Hippie" (by adding some letters) to spiritual to mystical to weird, with no theory very convincing.

That has led others to say that these 18 letters are nothing but filler, pure gibberish. With no real evidence to back that up either.

The Zodiac said this cipher contained his "identity".

But in the Harden solution he said he would not "give" his name.

But he later said if police crack the code they will "have him".

Perhaps by saying he would not "give" his name, he meant he would not just "give it up easily" in the first stage of the decode. He puts the 18 letter string in their at the end, in effect saying ‘if you want my name, you are going to have to work very hard for it’.

Richard, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Sun Apr 24, 2011 9:02 pm

Zodiac seemed obsessed with the number seventeen. Here are some interesting discussions about the significance of the number seventeen (17):

From Wikipedia…

The number 17 has wide significance in pure mathematics, as well as in applied sciences, law, music, religion, sports, and other cultural phenomena… See link below for a long discussion and examples.

LINK:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_(number )

————————————————-

From Meaning of Numbers in Bible:

The Number Seventeen…

Seventeen stands out very prominently as a significant number. It is not a multiple of any other number, and therefore it has no factors. Hence it is called one of the prime (or indivisible) numbers.

What is more, it is the seventh in the list of the prime numbers. The prime number series runs 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, etc. Thirteen, it will be noted, is also a prime number, and is therefore important; but it is the sixth of the series: hence it partakes of the significance of the number 6, and is indeed an intensified expression of it.

In like manner Seventeen being the seventh of the series, it partakes of and intensifies the significance of the number seven. Indeed, it is the combination or sum of two perfect numbers—seven and ten—seven being the number of spiritual perfection, and ten of ordinal perfection.

Contrasted together the significance of these two numbers is clear; and when united in the number Seventeen we have a union of their respective meanings, viz., spiritual perfection, plus ordinal perfection, or the perfection of spiritual order. We see a beautiful illustration in Romans 8:35-39…

See the link below for some interesting examples of Biblical patterns of seven and ten adding up to seventeen…

LINK:

http://www.biblestudy.org/bibleref/mean … le/17.html

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Mon May 16, 2011 7:10 pm

That has led others to say that these 18 letters are nothing but filler, pure gibberish. With no real evidence to back that up either.

Sometime last year, someone over at MB posted the rather obvious and yet paradoxically entirely unnoticed observation that most of the last 18 cipher symbols were actually drop downs from rows above within the cipher, lending credence to the notion that the Zodiac needed a matching set of squared off cipher blocks, so he just dropped down cipher’s from above at random and then stitched them together with the glue of randomly chosen symbols.

That’s exactly what I would have done, if I was lazy, and the Zodiac doesn’t exactly impress me with any painstaking and methodical thinking, so I’m inclined to agree.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Mon May 16, 2011 7:52 pm

If he wanted it to be even, all he needed was 1 character as filler. He added 18.

I would check out this thread, and then the one below it, the report from thebigZ/Aquiman.

http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … odiac-code

http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … y-analysis

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Mon May 16, 2011 8:55 pm

If he wanted it to be even, all he needed was 1 character as filler.

If he added only one character, he wouldn’t have three parts of the same length. By making them all the same length, it would not be obvious which came first or last (not that it would anyway), thus making it more difficult.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Mon May 16, 2011 9:08 pm

I don’t know that it automatically follows that the shortest one is the last one. He could have made the shortest one any of the three. Would it have been that important to him? Didn’t the number of stamps tell the order?

I don’t see clear evidence of intent to mislead on the order.

The idea "its all gibberish" never carried water with me, it seemed to be born of the frustration of the failure to solve.

I suppose its possible they are just filler, but then we have to accept it as pure coincidence that the 18 fillers match the 18 letters in the name of a Z suspect, when your study shows from a 5% to 1% or less chance the 18 letter name would happen by chance in a Caesar array.

On its own, maybe, but tied into all the other evidence, I don’t think they were filler.

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Mon May 16, 2011 9:47 pm

If he wanted it to be even, all he needed was 1 character as filler.

If he added only one character, he wouldn’t have three parts of the same length. By making them all the same length, it would not be obvious which came first or last (not that it would anyway), thus making it more difficult.

That’s what I thought too, A.

Richard, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Tue May 17, 2011 12:39 pm

Regardless of whether the last 18 characters have any specific meaning, or whether some of them do, or whether they are just gibberish: The total number of characters in all three parts of his message are exactly equal. Each letter to a newsapaper contained eight rows of seventeen characters. That is a total of 24 rows of 17 characters.

In that context, certainly the "unsolved 18" characters do have meaning to Zodiac. They had to be there to complete his message.

He repeated this pattern later in his "340" code message where, again, each row contained exactly 17 characters. But this time, it was only one document which contained 20 rows of 17 characters. In this message, he used all of his previous code characters and added exactly 17 new characters.

Zodiac used his code on two other occasions. One was his letter in which he stated "My name is"… and 13 code characters followed.

The next instance of code inclusion was his letter claiming to have killed a man sitting in a car with a .38 and his Mount Diablo – Phillips 66 map. There were only two lines of code; The first was 17 characters long and under that another line containing 15 characters. He had repeated his 17 character theme, but deviated from it immediately with his second line.

In his two short code letters, he COULD have used filler to make all lines come out to 17 characters, but he DID NOT do this.

Numbers and patterns were important to Zodiac, and obviously so were riddles and codes.

Because of this, I would tend to agree that the "unsolved 18" do have some meaning. But just what that is, is the mystery.

The fact that only the first of his four separate code compositions was deciphered only up to the 18 final characters, AND that no others were decisively decoded, leads me to believe that he must have used some sort of shift or code change at that point.

Code shifts are usually done on a sort of grid set up – much in the format of Zodiac’s carefully gridded messages. I wonder if his "shift" or new "set" might be contained in the actual message itself.

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Tue May 17, 2011 2:21 pm

Because of this, I would tend to agree that the "unsolved 18" do have some meaning. But just what that is, is the mystery.

No offense, but it’s only a mystery for those that refuse to see that the mysterious eighteen ciphers are mostly drop downs, containing five e’s and three I’s and other common letters in order, I would presume, to throw off cursory frequency analysis. If the last three 18 characters contain a message, you would certinaly not expect them to consist of drop downs of frequently occurring letters.

Sometimes, that image of Jesus in the gaucamole is just an illusion.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Tue May 17, 2011 9:12 pm

The 408 has a coherent message. If the last 18 are just drop downs, copies of previous lines of code, why don’t we see a coherent message in the last 18? In other words, if large sequences of the 18 are just repeats, why doesn’t it translate as "MAN IS THE MOST DAN LIKE KILLING" or something like that? Why is it instead the EBE sequence?

I think that is a big problem with the gibberish theory. The theory is itself gibberish, just like the "340 is gibberish" nonsense.

I stand by my work in the links below, nobody has refuted it. The report by thebigZ/Aquiman infacts totally refutes the main objection of my critics, that an 18 letter name would appear in any 18 letter string put into a Caesar matrix.

http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … odiac-code

http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … y-analysis

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Wed May 18, 2011 7:34 am

A detailed discussion of this topic can be found HERE. "glurk" puts forth a compelling argument in favor of the "drop down" solution. However, even with drop downs, there may be another reason for doing so besides sheer laziness. While (IMO) it certainly appears that there is a pattern to the "drop down theory," it would have been much easier to simply pick out random symbols as filler rather than going through the effort of choosing one from above.

Edit: I forgot… MB does not allow links to his site.

The link is http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/forum/ … f=49&t=423

You’ll have to copy and paste.

-tbz

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Wed May 18, 2011 1:15 pm

The drop down theory is nonsense.

Look at the "theory" in action. Every column has 23 symbols to pick from, so of course just by random chance, many of the symbols on the last line will have an identical symbol somewhere in the 23 above them. There are 26 letters in the alphabet. There does not appear any ryhme, reason or pattern here. We just have the coincidence that some of the symbols have a repeat in the 23 above them. Big deal! You could pick line 10 of this code, and look at the 23 symbols above and below it, and find roughly the same number of repeats. And not all the symbols in the last line have repeats.

The only one that I admit is slightly interesting is the 4 symbol repeat. That catches the eye. The symbols translate as METH, in the code it says ‘kill soMETHing". In the last line it appears as METH. The last three letters ETH all appear in the first name of my POI, they also can anagram to THE, so I think this is likely coincidence or perhaps knowing he needed the letters METH to Caesar shift and anagram to his name, Z thought by doing a drop down it increases confusion and difficulty of solution, perhaps leading some to think the 18 were mere filler.

But overall the filler theory is a complete washout. With 23 symbols above them, there are bound to be more repeats then not.

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Wed May 18, 2011 3:07 pm

In all fairness to glurk, I think he looked for repeats as a function of ALL the other rows, not just those above. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at it, however, so I’ll recheck just to make sure.

-tbz

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Wed May 18, 2011 3:29 pm

In all fairness indeed. The fact is, and I would have to consult some mathematics on this one, the probability you would find the very same 4-symbol code directly above, and neatly across the above row in question, isn’t terribly high, especially when you factor in the homophonic distribution, and even when you consider that there’s 23 symbols above the final-row cipher in the respective row.

When you then compound the situation with three other symbols, a single and a double, to the immediate left in adjacent rows, the probabilty goes down even further, and what you get is exactly what anyone would get if they needed to round the last cipher block using previous ciphers.

And, as AQ said, in all fairness to Glurk, I know for a fact he is well versed in the requisite mathematics, so his opinion regarding the grouping has some weight as he, more so than perhaps just anyone else looking at the code, would know almost instinctively that the statistical chances are low that you would find this situation as it is if the code wasn’t exactly what it looks like: filler.

But hey, submit the code and your questions to a variety of trained cryptoanalysts. Don’t provide them leading questions or opinion, just submit the code, give them the plaintext solution and some general background, and see what they say.

Richard, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Wed May 18, 2011 4:23 pm

In the sense that Zodiac made all of his three message parts come out exactly equal in length, and the fact that his message appeared to be complete (ie not ending in mid-sentance or mid-word), one could consider the final 18 characters to be "filler". The purpose of filler in encryption is just that – filling in at the end to lengthen the appearance of an encrypted message, or to make it come out to a certain length.

In my own experience (military communications), I never employed this "drop down" technique, although it would probably work to simply provide random filler characters. The problem is that the person decrypting it might find some meaning in it if it happened to spell something. Simply dropping in characters without any thought is dangerous and could easily foul up your message.

Military code books contain lines of nonsense type filler phrases to add to the end of a message prior to encryption. They are put at the end so that time is not wasted in the decryption process. Once the decrypter finds one of these filler phrases, he knows that the rest of the encryted message is filler and can be ignored. Unfortunately, sometimes this practice has led to confusion and misunderstanding.

An example would be during World War II when US Commander in Chief, Pacific sent out a message trying to learn the position of Task Force 58 during a crucial point in the Pacific campaign. The message read: "Where is Task Force 58? The world wonders."

The phrase "The world wonders" was simply code book filler thrown in to lengthen the message. But the Task Force 58 Commander thought that it was a sarcastic dig by his superior officer, and became very angry and resentful because of it, always believing that it was an intentional part of the message.

Looking at the 408 encryped message, it is interesting that the 4 character portion "METH" falls directly in line with that same pattern above it. If you do not look only at lines directly above a given character, you can find a number of two and three character repeats in the final 18.

Zodiac used 55 Characters to represent the 23 letters found in his 408 message, so mathematically the chances would be 23 (number of lines above) out of 55 (total number of available characters) of repeating a letter in the same column. This is stating it in simple form. The actual odds would be different for each specific column, and each specific letter.

While chances of repeating two or even three characters from SOMEWHERE in the message could be calculated, chances of repeating four adjacent characters from the columns immediately above are almost too large to be random. Certainly they could be calculated, but it might be similar to one player drawing four aces twice in the same card game.

Regarding the large number of vowels in the final 18, that may well be intentional on Zodiac’s part, but I do not see how it would have had much effect on foiling attempts to decrypt the message. Anyone experienced in decoding messages knows that filler might be added at the end, and most of the pattern would be established before those final 18 characters are used.

IF Zodiac intentionally chose to repeat a bunch of vowels and common letters, he certainly would not have had to look up the columns to encrypt them. He would probably have written them out and then encrypted them from his own code key.

Since the final 18 do not make any sense when decrypting using the Hardin solution, there may have been some sort of shift used by Zodiac. It is possible that he employed an alphabet shift as suggested by AK Wilks. It may also be possible that he used two or more of the final 18 characters to indicate a shift or shifts.

I am wondering if Z possibly indicates a shift by repeating a character or two from the body of his message grid above. For example, maybe locating the first or last symbol(s) somewhere in the message above might give a letter shift or a pattern of shifts to further decode the message.

In doing a simple encryption over open channels by voice, we would state initially, "I set: _ _ " and then state two letters. The first letter would be chosen from first column of an encryption grid. The second letter would be in the line beginning with the first letter. The next letter on that same line would be where the guy decrypting the message would go for the key. After a certain number of characters had been used, the person sending the message could "set" another line for encryption/decryption and continue on with transmitting the encrypted message.

For example, the sender might say: "I set India Bravo. Kilo Alpha Victor Whisky Bravo Delta Sierra. I set Zebra Delta, Mike India Victor Charlie….. etc. the "I set India Bravo" is not part of the message, but rather the key for decrypting the message. By changing the "set" a number of times, it makes de-coding by others who do not posses the code book much more difficult.

Because Zodiac sent two very short encryptions between his long 408 and 340 messages, I feel that he must have used a "set" to vary his encryption. If he actually encrypted real messages, the code had to have come from his first message, with a new "set" being found in the final 18, or at the beginning of the two short messages.

For Zodiac to have come up with a completely separate code for only a 13 character message or for a 32 character message the result would be nothing more than random gibberish – and he would have known that. Had he simply sent out random gibberish in his two short messages, why would he later send out his more advanced 340 message and expect anyone to take him seriously?

Zodiac was a game player and wanted to challenge the police, news media, and general public in his mind games. He took himself seriously and probably would not have set himself up to look like a fool by sending out gibberish and taking the time to encrypt it all. I feel that after his first message was so quickly decrypted, he decided to make it more difficult.

In his 340 message, he employed the same 17 character grid format, but he added 17 characters. I believe that he did this in order to make his origional code more random. When you look at a code key for his 408 message, you see that three letters were not used and therefor had no equivalent character symbols. Eleven letters had only one substitution character. In order to give all letters at least two substitution characters, without re-arranging his origional code, he added 17 symbols. The result was his 340 code which contained a total of 72 characters to represent all 26 letters of the alphabet.

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Wed May 18, 2011 4:34 pm

I think, if anything, the 408 clearly demonstrates that the Zodiac was clumsy at best when it came to making ciphers, and he obviously derived his message before considering the final output.

The other thing is a matter of incongruity, in that, the Zodiac’s 408 code is crude and simple, and was whus cracked in a few days by essentially a nobody and his wife using pencil and paper and the thinnest of assumptions, and yet, we’re to believe the Zodiac suddenly derived an uncrackable message for the end of the aforementioned crude and simple 408?

An incongruity, and when you run the situation through with Occam’s Razor, it becomes clear, to me anyway, that the Zodiac was just inept at that point in his capaign and had no clue as to the look of his final output, and just filled it out to make it look neat when he cut it up and shipped it out to the newspapers.

While chances of repeating two or even three characters from SOMEWHERE in the message could be calculated, chances of repeating four adjacent characters from the columns immediately above are almost too large to be random. Certainly they could be calculated, but it might be similar to one player drawing four aces twice in the same card game.

Precisely.

Regarding the large number of vowels in the final 18, that may well be intentional on Zodiac’s part, but I do not see how it would have had much effect on foiling attempts to decrypt the message. Anyone experienced in decoding messages knows that filler might be added at the end, and most of the pattern would be established before those final 18 characters are used.

Again, this speaks to the naive and inexperience of the Zodiac in drawing up his initial code, in that he made the mistake in thinking that mere frequency analysis, of which I am willing to bet was the only codebreaking technique he understood or even thought existed, would perhaps provide someone a solution to his code, and when you look at it that way, combining other examples of his skill or lack thereof, it’s difficult to see how the man could have worked as a code analyst anywhere with his low-level and amateurish knowledge.

Since the final 18 do not make any sense when decrypting using the Hardin solution, there may have been some sort of shift used by Zodiac. It is possible that he employed an alphabet shift as suggested by AK Wilks. It may also be possible that he used two or more of the final 18 characters to indicate a shift or shifts.

This would then imply that the Zodiac was simplistic and crude while composing the 408’s main corpus, and yet complex when encoding the last 18 characters, and it also begs the question: why would the Zodiac want the world to know his name? He even speaks to this question within the 408, answering refusing to provide the promised information, namely his identity, saying rather bluntly that he was not going to give it.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Wed May 18, 2011 4:44 pm

The final 18 has 12 drop down repeats.

Looking at the next to last line in the 408, it has 5 drop down repeats plus another 4 drop down repeats with a slight variation (letter is backwards or forwards, etc.). A total of 9 drop downs.

I get very quick and rough results for other lines.

That to me pretty much invalidates the last line as anything special for drop downs. In particular if you consider that the interesting METH drop down has 3 letters in the suspect name, thus the drop down could be used as a diversionary tactic. In fact, since all 18 letters shift to the name, all of the drop downs could be part of it. In fact, they are part of it.

Fools Gold, if you find these probabilities interesting, what do you make of the report of thebigZ showing a 3 to 5% chance for the first and last name of a suspect, and about 1% chance or less to get both names, which we do? Isn’t that a far more meaningful probability? They can’t both be right (for the most part anyway, excepting the METH part, and perhaps other parts). Most likely either it is filler, or it is meaningful, and perhaps meaningful in that it has the coded name.

Please see http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … ysis#15286

And the report from thebigZ/Aquiman computer analysis reveals a 0.5% chance, or "one half of one percent", that we would find via Caesar shift the first 4 letters of a suspects first name and the first 6 letters of his last name in a continuous sequence in 10 letters of the 340 code.

http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … ysis#15289

Richard those are interesting observations you make, I have to study them more!

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Wed May 18, 2011 4:55 pm

Fools Gold, if you find these probabilities interesting, what do you make of the report of thebigZ showing a 3 to 5% chance for the first and last name of a suspect, and about 1% chance or less to get both names, which we do? Isn’t that a far more meaningful probability? They can’t both be right (for the most part anyway, excepting the METH part, and perhaps other parts). Most likely either it is filler, or it is meaningful, and perhaps meaningful in that it has the coded name.

You’ll have to pardon me, Ak, but I haven’t seen any mathematical deriviations by anyone regarding any aspect of the filler, I merely surmised that, knowing what I do about probability theory and the 408”s cipher context, it’s fantastic that anyone would find those four characters from the final line repeated directly above, perfectly aligned, if the 18 characters was anything but meaningless filler.

Looking at the next to last line in the 408, it has 5 drop down repeats plus another 4 drop down repeats with a slight variation (letter is backwards or forwards, etc.). A total of 9 drop downs.

Did you find any line, looking both above and below, and excluding the last line, that can be comprised of pull-ups and pulldowns with one of those consisting of four characters in a perfect row, as we find with the final line?

And the report from thebigZ/Aquiman computer analysis reveals a 0.5% chance, or "one half of one percent", that we would find via Caesar shift the first 4 letters of a suspects first name and the first 6 letters of his last name in a continuous sequence in 10 letters of the 340 code.

Well, we were talking about apples and now we’re discussing oranges, but ok, I’ll say you’ll have to show me your work, one of the first rules of proving a mathematical theorem, so I would need to see the mathematics involved and the code as well before I could say anything at all.

EDIT: So, what I’m seeing with what Aquiman said is that, in essence, there’s a very, very low probability in finding a specific suspects name in a cipher string using a limited set of simple shifts, but, and this is how I see it so correct me if I’m wrong, the mathematical model used to calculate the probability does not take into account all the rather complex transformations and whatnot you used to pull Ted’s name from the last 18.

Am I wrong? Aquiman?

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Wed May 18, 2011 7:37 pm

no the rather low probability is using my caesar shifts and anagrams.

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Wed May 18, 2011 9:28 pm

no the rather low probability is using my caesar shifts and anagrams.

That’s correct. The probability is a function of 1) Caesar shifts of -9, -6, -3, +3, +6, or +9 and 2) the use of anagramming. While I looked specifically at TJK’s name, any combination of 18 letters will have similar (but not exact) results. Results are different because of the duplication/overlap of letters from the Caesar shifts.

AK and I are not in complete agreement as to what these "results" prove (if anything); however, it is interesting that Ted’s name can be formed from the final 18 using this methodology. I’ve been given some suggestions for names that others have found using the same methodology. It can be done, though none of the other "well known" suspects’ names have been similarly found. Keep in mind too, that none of the others have 18 letter names.

-tbz

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Wed May 18, 2011 9:34 pm

Keep in mind too, that none of the others have 18 letter names.

And that right there is quite important.

The other thing that I asked: by what mathematical methodology did you arrive at the percentage numbers you posted?

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Thu May 19, 2011 7:26 am

The other thing that I asked: by what mathematical methodology did you arrive at the percentage numbers you posted?

You’re not the only one to ask this FG. I think I explained it in general terms in one of the TJK threads, but I’ll give you the "detailed short list" of the steps involved. I included some if the inputs and outputs to the brute force computer program (done in Mathematica) used to calculate the probability. Open to suggestions/criticisms from the rest of you math nerds out there (and you normal people too).

-tbz

*******

Purpose

Determine the probability of forming the name “Theodore J Kazcynski” by choosing 18 letters at random, given the following constraints:
a) A letter may be “Caesar shifted” by values of -9, -6, -3, 0, +3, +6, or +9 to obtain a required letter.
b) The sequence can be anagrammed to form the correct order.

Step 1. Input the required letter set.

Input:
requiredLetterSet={"T","H","E","O","D","O","R","E","J","K","A","C","Z","Y","N","S","K","I"}

Output:
{T,H,E,O,D,O,R,E,J,K,A,C,Z,Y,N,S,K,I}

Step 2. Convert letters to corresponding alphabet numbers

Input:
requiredNumberSet=Flatten[ToCharacterCode[requiredLetterSet]-64]

Output:
{20,8,5,15,4,15,18,5,10,11,1,3,26,25,14,19,11,9}

Step 3. Determine Caesar shifted values for each letter.

Input:
possibleNumberSet=Table[
s=requiredNumberSet[];
Mod[{s-9,s-6,s-3,s,s+3,s+6,s+9},26,1],{i,Length[requiredNumberSet]}]

Output:
{{11,14,17,20,23,26,3},{25,2,5,8,11,14,17},{22,25,2,5,8,11,14},{6,9,12,15,18,21,24},{21,24,1,4,7,10,13},{6,9,12,15,18,21,24},{9,12,15,18,21,24,1},{22,25,2,5,8,11,14},{1,4,7,10,13,16,19},{2,5,8,11,14,17,20},{18,21,24,1,4,7,10},{20,23,26,3,6,9,12},
{17,20,23,26,3,6,9},{16,19,22,25,2,5,8},{5,8,11,14,17,20,23},{10,13,16,19,22,25,2},{2,5,8,11,14,17,20},{26,3,6,9,12,15,18}}

Corresponding letters given as follows:

Input:
possibleLetterSet=Table[
s=requiredNumberSet[];
FromCharacterCode[Mod[{s-9,s-6,s-3,s,s+3,s+6,s+9},26,1]+64],{i,Length[requiredNumberSet]}]

Output:
{KNQTWZC,YBEHKNQ,VYBEHKN,FILORUX,UXADGJM,FILORUX,ILORUXA,VYBEHKN,ADGJMPS,BEHKNQT,RUXADGJ,TWZCFIL,QTWZCFI,PSVYBEH,EHKNQTW,JMPSVYB,BEHKNQT,ZCFILOR}

Step 4: Extract a subset of the name (e.g., {“T”, “H”, “E”}). Showing the 3-letter example… beyond that there are too many permutations to print out.

Input:
lettersSubset=3;
theoSubset=Take[possibleNumberSet,lettersSubset]

Output:
{{11,14,17,20,23,26,3},{25,2,5,8,11,14,17},{22,25,2,5,8,11,14}}

Step 5: Determine every possible combination of letters by taking one letter from each set. This will (initially) include duplicates.

Input:
temp=Flatten[Table[
Sort[{theoSubset[[1,i]],theoSubset[[2,j]],theoSubset[[3,k]]}],{i,7},{j,7},{k,7}],lettersSubset-1]

Output:
{{11,22,25},{11,25,25},{2,11,25},{5,11,25},{8,11,25},{11,11,25},{11,14,25},{2,11,22},{2,11,25},{2,2,11},{2,5,11},{2,8,11},{2,11,11},{2,11,14},{5,11,22},{5,11,25},{2,5,11},{5,5,11},{5,8,11},{5,11,11},{5,11,14},{8,11,22},{8,11,25},{2,8,11},{5,8,11},{8,8,11},{8,11,11},{8,11,14},{11,11,22},{11,11,25},{2,11,11},{5,11,11},{8,11,11},{11,11,11},{11,11,14},{11,14,22},{11,14,25},{2,11,14},{5,11,14},{8,11,14},{11,11,14},{11,14,14},{11,17,22},{11,17,25},{2,11,17},{5,11,17},{8,11,17},{11,11,17},{11,14,17},{14,22,25},{14,25,25},{2,14,25},{5,14,25},{8,14,25},{11,14,25},{14,14,25},{2,14,22},{2,14,25},{2,2,14},{2,5,14},{2,8,14},{2,11,14},{2,14,14},{5,14,22},{5,14,25},{2,5,14},{5,5,14},{5,8,14},{5,11,14},{5,14,14},{8,14,22},{8,14,25},{2,8,14},{5,8,14},{8,8,14},{8,11,14},{8,14,14},{11,14,22},{11,14,25},{2,11,14},{5,11,14},{8,11,14},{11,11,14},{11,14,14},{14,14,22},{14,14,25},{2,14,14},{5,14,14},{8,14,14},{11,14,14},{14,14,14},{14,17,22},{14,17,25},{2,14,17},{5,14,17},{8,14,17},{11,14,17},{14,14,17},{17,22,25},{17,25,25},{2,17,25},{5,17,25},{8,17,25},{11,17,25},{14,17,25},{2,17,22},{2,17,25},{2,2,17},{2,5,17},{2,8,17},{2,11,17},{2,14,17},{5,17,22},{5,17,25},{2,5,17},{5,5,17},{5,8,17},{5,11,17},{5,14,17},{8,17,22},{8,17,25},{2,8,17},{5,8,17},{8,8,17},{8,11,17},{8,14,17},{11,17,22},{11,17,25},{2,11,17},{5,11,17},{8,11,17},{11,11,17},{11,14,17},{14,17,22},{14,17,25},{2,14,17},{5,14,17},{8,14,17},{11,14,17},{14,14,17},{17,17,22},{17,17,25},{2,17,17},{5,17,17},{8,17,17},{11,17,17},{14,17,17},{20,22,25},{20,25,25},{2,20,25},{5,20,25},{8,20,25},{11,20,25},{14,20,25},{2,20,22},{2,20,25},{2,2,20},{2,5,20},{2,8,20},{2,11,20},{2,14,20},{5,20,22},{5,20,25},{2,5,20},{5,5,20},{5,8,20},{5,11,20},{5,14,20},{8,20,22},{8,20,25},{2,8,20},{5,8,20},{8,8,20},{8,11,20},{8,14,20},{11,20,22},{11,20,25},{2,11,20},{5,11,20},{8,11,20},{11,11,20},{11,14,20},{14,20,22},{14,20,25},{2,14,20},{5,14,20},{8,14,20},{11,14,20},{14,14,20},{17,20,22},{17,20,25},{2,17,20},{5,17,20},{8,17,20},{11,17,20},{14,17,20},{22,23,25},{23,25,25},{2,23,25},{5,23,25},{8,23,25},{11,23,25},{14,23,25},{2,22,23},{2,23,25},{2,2,23},{2,5,23},{2,8,23},{2,11,23},{2,14,23},{5,22,23},{5,23,25},{2,5,23},{5,5,23},{5,8,23},{5,11,23},{5,14,23},{8,22,23},{8,23,25},{2,8,23},{5,8,23},{8,8,23},{8,11,23},{8,14,23},{11,22,23},{11,23,25},{2,11,23},{5,11,23},{8,11,23},{11,11,23},{11,14,23},{14,22,23},{14,23,25},{2,14,23},{5,14,23},{8,14,23},{11,14,23},{14,14,23},{17,22,23},{17,23,25},{2,17,23},{5,17,23},{8,17,23},{11,17,23},{14,17,23},{22,25,26},{25,25,26},{2,25,26},{5,25,26},{8,25,26},{11,25,26},{14,25,26},{2,22,26},{2,25,26},{2,2,26},{2,5,26},{2,8,26},{2,11,26},{2,14,26},{5,22,26},{5,25,26},{2,5,26},{5,5,26},{5,8,26},{5,11,26},{5,14,26},{8,22,26},{8,25,26},{2,8,26},{5,8,26},{8,8,26},{8,11,26},{8,14,26},{11,22,26},{11,25,26},{2,11,26},{5,11,26},{8,11,26},{11,11,26},{11,14,26},{14,22,26},{14,25,26},{2,14,26},{5,14,26},{8,14,26},{11,14,26},{14,14,26},{17,22,26},{17,25,26},{2,17,26},{5,17,26},{8,17,26},{11,17,26},{14,17,26},{3,22,25},{3,25,25},{2,3,25},{3,5,25},{3,8,25},{3,11,25},{3,14,25},{2,3,22},{2,3,25},{2,2,3},{2,3,5},{2,3,8},{2,3,11},{2,3,14},{3,5,22},{3,5,25},{2,3,5},{3,5,5},{3,5,8},{3,5,11},{3,5,14},{3,8,22},{3,8,25},{2,3,8},{3,5,8},{3,8,8},{3,8,11},{3,8,14},{3,11,22},{3,11,25},{2,3,11},{3,5,11},{3,8,11},{3,11,11},{3,11,14},{3,14,22},{3,14,25},{2,3,14},{3,5,14},{3,8,14},{3,11,14},{3,14,14},{3,17,22},{3,17,25},{2,3,17},{3,5,17},{3,8,17},{3,11,17},{3,14,17}}

Step 6. Remove duplicate arrangements by taking the union of all sets.

Input:
uniqueSets=Union[temp]

Output:
{{2,2,3},{2,2,11},{2,2,14},{2,2,17},{2,2,20},{2,2,23},{2,2,26},{2,3,5},{2,3,8},{2,3,11},{2,3,14},{2,3,17},{2,3,22},{2,3,25},{2,5,11},{2,5,14},{2,5,17},{2,5,20},{2,5,23},{2,5,26},{2,8,11},{2,8,14},{2,8,17},{2,8,20},{2,8,23},{2,8,26},{2,11,11},{2,11,14},{2,11,17},{2,11,20},{2,11,22},{2,11,23},{2,11,25},{2,11,26},{2,14,14},{2,14,17},{2,14,20},{2,14,22},{2,14,23},{2,14,25},{2,14,26},{2,17,17},{2,17,20},{2,17,22},{2,17,23},{2,17,25},{2,17,26},{2,20,22},{2,20,25},{2,22,23},{2,22,26},{2,23,25},{2,25,26},{3,5,5},{3,5,8},{3,5,11},{3,5,14},{3,5,17},{3,5,22},{3,5,25},{3,8,8},{3,8,11},{3,8,14},{3,8,17},{3,8,22},{3,8,25},{3,11,11},{3,11,14},{3,11,17},{3,11,22},{3,11,25},{3,14,14},{3,14,17},{3,14,22},{3,14,25},{3,17,22},{3,17,25},{3,22,25},{3,25,25},{5,5,11},{5,5,14},{5,5,17},{5,5,20},{5,5,23},{5,5,26},{5,8,11},{5,8,14},{5,8,17},{5,8,20},{5,8,23},{5,8,26},{5,11,11},{5,11,14},{5,11,17},{5,11,20},{5,11,22},{5,11,23},{5,11,25},{5,11,26},{5,14,14},{5,14,17},{5,14,20},{5,14,22},{5,14,23},{5,14,25},{5,14,26},{5,17,17},{5,17,20},{5,17,22},{5,17,23},{5,17,25},{5,17,26},{5,20,22},{5,20,25},{5,22,23},{5,22,26},{5,23,25},{5,25,26},{8,8,11},{8,8,14},{8,8,17},{8,8,20},{8,8,23},{8,8,26},{8,11,11},{8,11,14},{8,11,17},{8,11,20},{8,11,22},{8,11,23},{8,11,25},{8,11,26},{8,14,14},{8,14,17},{8,14,20},{8,14,22},{8,14,23},{8,14,25},{8,14,26},{8,17,17},{8,17,20},{8,17,22},{8,17,23},{8,17,25},{8,17,26},{8,20,22},{8,20,25},{8,22,23},{8,22,26},{8,23,25},{8,25,26},{11,11,11},{11,11,14},{11,11,17},{11,11,20},{11,11,22},{11,11,23},{11,11,25},{11,11,26},{11,14,14},{11,14,17},{11,14,20},{11,14,22},{11,14,23},{11,14,25},{11,14,26},{11,17,17},{11,17,20},{11,17,22},{11,17,23},{11,17,25},{11,17,26},{11,20,22},{11,20,25},{11,22,23},{11,22,25},{11,22,26},{11,23,25},{11,25,25},{11,25,26},{14,14,14},{14,14,17},{14,14,20},{14,14,22},{14,14,23},{14,14,25},{14,14,26},{14,17,17},{14,17,20},{14,17,22},{14,17,23},{14,17,25},{14,17,26},{14,20,22},{14,20,25},{14,22,23},{14,22,25},{14,22,26},{14,23,25},{14,25,25},{14,25,26},{17,17,22},{17,17,25},{17,20,22},{17,20,25},{17,22,23},{17,22,25},{17,22,26},{17,23,25},{17,25,25},{17,25,26},{20,22,25},{20,25,25},{22,23,25},{22,25,26},{23,25,25},{25,25,26}}

Step 7. Determine number of permutations for each unique arrangement.

Input:
numberOfUniqueArrangementsOfLettersInEachSet=Table[
Length[Permutations[uniqueSets[]]],{b,Length[uniqueSets]}]

Output:
{3,3,3,3,3,3,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,1,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,1,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,3,3,6,6,6,6,6,6,3,6,6,3,6,6,3,3}

Step 8. Add up each number of permutations to obtain the total number of unique arrangements for the given subset.

Input:
totalNumberOfUniqueArrangements=Total[numberOfUniqueArrangementsOfLettersInEachSet]

Output:
1121

Step 9. Determine the probability of obtaining any ONE arrangement of the subset.

Input:
numberOfGroups=lettersSubset;
probOfAnyOneLetter=1/26;
probOfAnyOneArrangement=probOfAnyOneLetter^numberOfGroups//N

Output:
0.0000568958

Step 10. Determine the probability of obtaining ANY arrangement (anagram) of the subset.

Input:
probOfNameInAnyOrder3=probOfAnyOneArrangement * totalNumberOfUniqueArrangements

Output:
0.0637802

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Thu May 19, 2011 2:13 pm

Now that’s what I wanted to see! Now I have something to think about. Thanks Aq.

And Ak, if you’re stilling reading this, I’m not going to argue against your ideas because there’s no need to generate animosity.

You believe what you do and I disgaree.

I don’t believe Ted is the Zodiac, but I will admit that it’s interesting you found his name in the 408’s filler.

, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Thu May 19, 2011 2:25 pm

Huh. I got very similar numbers dividing 1 by 26 and multiplying by 18….going to look into this more for sure.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: 18 Character Unsolved Portion Of The First Zodiac Code   Thu May 19, 2011 4:52 pm

Fools Gold – I hope you do look into this more. I welcome any comments, criticisms or questions. As does thebigZ/Aquiman.

I might suggest starting here to see my ideas on the Unsolved 18:

http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … odiac-code

Then look here for more Caesar Code analysis:

http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … e-analysis

Then here for the excellent report by thebigZ/Aquiman on the Kite – Wilks code work:

http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … y-analysis

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