After having a little time to think about it, noticed one difference between the z408 and the z340. It’s how the zodiac allocated his symbols.
What I mean by that is that it looks like the Z408 was organized by creating an alphabet and allocating symbols to those letters.
As opposed to the z340 where it looks like he wrote the message first, separated out which letters he used and then allocated those symbols. Why do I think that? Because the z340 key is missing the letters J, K, Q, X, and Z But the entire alphabet was used as symbols in the key. Meaning that there is a high probability of those 5 letters never being apart of the original key.
So what could this mean? Maybe that his first cipher wasn’t rushed. He had time to make the cipher then write the message using the cipher. As opposed to the z340 where maybe he wanted to get a cipher out in a hurry. The easiest way to do that would be to write the message, then allocate symbols.
Maybe I’m off here, I’m still thinking about it. Just wanted to put it out there for thought if it hasn’t been yet.
After having a little time to think about it, noticed one difference between the z408 and the z340. It’s how the zodiac allocated his symbols.
What I mean by that is that it looks like the Z408 was organized by creating an alphabet and allocating symbols to those letters.
As opposed to the z340 where it looks like he wrote the message first, separated out which letters he used and then allocated those symbols. Why do I think that? Because the z340 key is missing the letters J, K, Q, X, and Z But the entire alphabet was used as symbols in the key. Meaning that there is a high probability of those 5 letters never being apart of the original key.
So what could this mean? Maybe that his first cipher wasn’t rushed. He had time to make the cipher then write the message using the cipher. As opposed to the z340 where maybe he wanted to get a cipher out in a hurry. The easiest way to do that would be to write the message, then allocate symbols.
Maybe I’m off here, I’m still thinking about it. Just wanted to put it out there for thought if it hasn’t been yet.
The forward facing letter "Q" and arguably the letter "I" do not appear as symbols in the 340 cipher, but I tend to agree that the message was probably created 1st, and then the key created afterwards, likely even at the same time the message was enciphered.
For what’s its worth, my opinion is that he did intend to make it harder, but not five-decades-later harder. The contemporaneous reference to the Dunbar TV show seems like a really strong indication that he expected it to be solved in a reasonable amount of time.
Correct.
The reverse paradice at the end of the 340 might suggest that there is indeed a word game embedded in the cyphertext, and that there is another layer to crack, or at least to figure out. There are some reversed, non-reversed, and some slightly scrambled words in the cyphertext.
Then there are all those symmetries which are noted in a different thread (viewtopic.php?f=81&t=4342), which become much more interesting now that we know that the cypher is broken into two blocks of nine lines. The ninth line is bracketed by the two dash symbols (-) and the middle of that line, counting from the dashes, is a cross.
Then, of course, there is the zodiac signature right in the cypher text at the end of the message.
scytale cipher written into two 9 x 17 matrices
Yeah, thanks for pointing out!
The 1st part is legit 9×17 with shift 2 on each row. Width 17 is the same as 408. Nine turns just like the book text says.
But the 2nd part looks like 9×11 and then 8×6 starting with ROAASH underneath the "LIFEIS".
What really strikes me here is the absence of any padding (gibberish or not)!
The only extra symbol is that O in BRINGO. It looks like he wrote the 1st part and went very creative with the 2nd part to avoid gibberish at the end. Symbol counting, choosing of words. Wow.
Edit: BRINGO was officially corrected as BRINGS so no extra symbols at all
2nd part is the hard one.
4 ‘errors’ in symbols:
K as V (filled circle) – no K in alphabet
N as H (+)
I as E (mirrored B)
I as H (+)
Line 6 from 9×11 not shifted by 2 positions right (knight move), just by 1 (diagonally). And corressponding ‘RATENY’ from 8×6 just fills the space.
9×11 and 8×6:
And my final thoughts.
1. It’s indeed scytale-ish transposition with 9×17 matrix.
2. ‘Two dashes’ hint ended up with ‘LIFEIS’ chunk. He needed something with an ‘S’ at the end of the 1st line in 2nd part.
3. He messed up with line 6. Just one position off. Surprisingly, line 7 is ok. No idea how he counted x2 offsets this way.
4. He managed to avoid any padding/gibberish somehow.
And my final thoughts.
3. He messed up with line 6. Just one position off. Surprisingly, line 7 is ok. No idea how he counted x2 offsets this way.
What bothers me is you’d expect him to have tried decrypting it himself before sending it of to make sure he hadn’t mess up.
If you make the rules, how long would it have taken him to do so?
What bothers me is you’d expect him to have tried decrypting it himself before sending it of to make sure he hadn’t mess up.
If you make the rules, how long would it have taken him to do so?
I’d say one hour tops. ‘LIFEIS’ chunk broke ~5 words from decryption pov. It was planned. But that unintended one-off error in line 6 just ruined whole 2nd part (~17 additional breaks).
IHOPEYOUAREHAVING
Hope is not a strategy.
Kudos for the amazing work!
Very curious about the next one!
Thanks!
Inform the GSK is Zodiac crowd!
On second thought, maybe that ‘LIFEIS’ just came from ‘LIFEWI’ at the end of the original 2nd 9×17 matrix. He didn’t want to break ‘WILL’ apart. So, no magic ‘two dashes’ clue, just a coincidence.
As opposed to the z340 where it looks like he wrote the message first, separated out which letters he used and then allocated those symbols.
Exactly. The message came first. It’s impossible make ‘ZODAIK’ symbols meaningful otherwise.
I would to note that "IS" clearly belongs to the word "LIFE", as it is in the same place with it.
Any options that imply "DEATH IS LIFE" require more steps, most of which aren’t obvious for the point of view of a generic reader (reading from bottom to top, moving words, etc).
Therefore, "LIFE IS DEATH" is the one and only correct option.
In addition, the final meaning should be checked by the message itself or at least by previous messages from Zodiac, but without allowing any external speculation. With this assumption in mind, only the option "my new life is death; life will be an easy one in paradice" corresponds to this – because here you can understand that the current life of Zodiac is already death, but the new one in paradise will be simple due to the presence of slaves.
Any other option provided requires much more complex speculation.
Hello, new user here.
Just a though I have: the tenth line starts and stops with symbol -. This makes this specific line stand out. We know now that the period-19 should stop here and loop around to the top.
Is is possible that the minus symbols are a clue that shows that this line is a break point?
If so, could this be the reason for him to include the out-of-place LIFEIS words at this location, i.e. to be able to easily insert the minus character at the end of the line?
