This is something I have wanted to do for awhile. Since being involved with the case, I have seen dozens and dozens of proposed 340 solutions. Some good, some bad, some with points of interest, some with nonsense.
The problem with almost all of them is that after the first 5 lines, they increasingly turn into gibberish. Some then take those letters and arrange them into anagrams.
I wanted to prove that you can write vitually anything in the first 5 lines because of lack of repeat symbols. Then you can look at the rest, which is actually gibberish, and through the use of creativity, adding a letter or two, wide anagrams and so forth, come up with coincidence and words.
So to prove this – lest someone think my first 5 lines were correct – I mostly used words and ideas that Z could not have known in 1969. Unless he was a time traveler.
So what do we see?
Totally without help from me, as I only input the first 5 lines – we potentially have the word RATE and CAFE BAK. Obvioulsy Z was a top rated chef at a cafe. Down further with anagram help we have YE TOWN HADE. Looking at other lines, I bet we could get anagrams for other words, suspect names and phrases. Anyone see others?
BILL TAN HOT TEEN JEM RISE FEVER
MEET KAT WEAVE ALONE MR MOB
KILL BILL DEMON WEST MESS ME KOJAK
CREAM CURLY HONOR FRASER
MODERATOR
Dan, I realize that AK may be criticizing a method that you seem to utilize here and that you guys have developed some bad blood but I don’t read the post as necessarily personal. One thing that I’ve learned over the years is that work on the ciphers and persons of interest is PERSONAL. There is a lot of research time and effort put into both and nobody likes to have all of that work poo-pooed by someone else at a single glance. I may not always agree with either of you but it’s quite obvious that you are both extremely bright and that you put your hearts and souls into your work. I enjoy the contributions from both of you and would hate to see either of you go.
Perhaps the solution is simply to ignore each other’s work and just not post in each other’s threads? I realize that these sometimes overlap but there’s a lot to be said for just agreeing to disagree. I’ll let the mods take it from here…
AT HIS REQUEST I REMOVED DAN’S POST.
This solution is directed at nobody in particular but rather the dozens and dozens of solutions I have seen over the years. And it was fun. I think it proves the point you can say almost any thing in the first five lines and you will by coincidence generate words on other lines.
To everyone I could say does your solution have demon, mr mob, town hade, rate, cafe or a dozen other words?
Don’t you see how even an incorrect input on the first five lines will with anagram help generate words in the remaining 15 lines?
Also this cipher section used to be very lively with several members posting on a number of different topics and I would like to get back to that. So I thought this might stimulate some debate.
MODERATOR
I’m going to have to strongly agree with AK on this. Because of the homophonic nature of the 340, not only can someone put whatever they want at the start, phrases can also be easily placed elsewhere in the cipher.
Let’s take a known Zodiac phrase — "If the Blue Meanies are going to get me" — Here it fits (position 0) right at the start of the cipher:
(click image to see full-sized)
And here it also fits later in the cipher (position 239):
(click image to see full-sized)
If someone wanted to insert some phrase or wording into the cipher that they liked, or wanted to see, there is a lot of freedom to do that. And then, if one starts manipulating, anagramming and modifying things,
it would be possible to put almost anything in there. But that’s not cryptography, solving, or "cipher work." I’ve seen quite a few "solutions" like this. Far too many.
-glurk
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I don’t believe in monsters.
Bumping for educational refresher. I would ask members new and old who think that they have "solved" the 340 to read my posts and the posts of glurk above.
Also read this carefully: http://www.cse.unt.edu/~garlick/researc … ac-340.pdf
If you have a 340 "solution" that has mostly correct spelling no anagrams coherent words and phrases in the first 5 lines BUT the next 15 lines consist of mostly gibberish that only through the use of wide forced anagrams and creativity are jumbled baby talk words and phrases made, then you do NOT have a solution at all.
MODERATOR
