The are confectionery here. I remember them from primary school. A nicer mental image I suspect, It’s too early in the morning to risk checking what it means over the pond lol.

HAHAHA!!! Yeah, I would recommend not looking up what it means. Might make your breakfast come back up.

There can be such a thing as too much creativity. When someone approaches the ciphers with something in mind that they want to find, and are willing to do whatever it takes to get there, the odds are that they will.

-glurk

I wanted to comment on this but got distracted at the time.

Anyway, I completely agree and it echoes something which has often annoyed me when studying both proposed cipher solutions (the math aspect of which I have no business commenting on) and more general theories seeking to unearth "clues" hinting at Z’s identity in the letters (something I feel more confident commenting on).

I don’t think I’ve ever come across a proposed solution of any kind which does not – whether the proponent is aware of it or not – presuppose that the letters/ciphers were prepared by a certain, known individual (usually the proponent’s favorite suspect).

The problem with this approach is that it would be virtually impossible to arrive at the solution without prior knowledge of this name. Nobody, regardless of how clever he or she may be, would be able to unearth anything from the proposed "clues" using rational methods. If you presuppose that “Nomen Nescio” is the name hinted at, such cryptic “clues” may make some sense, sort of, yes. But you’re not supposed to presuppose this. The premise should be – regarded from Z’s point of view – that you don’t know his name. If he was playing a game, getting a kick out of hinting at his name, then he wouldn’t make the hints so cryptic that nobody could possibly detect them unless they already suspected who he was.

When I see this series of letters I see:

"Obey or I eat me the hippie ti"

EBEORIETEMETHHPITI

When I see this series of letters I see:

"Obey or I eat me the hippie ti"

EBEORIETEMETHHPITI

Obey the hippie or meet Taii? There is not a letter y, though.

Just a idea.

EBEORIETEMETHHPITI = liberate me ex inferis (Save me from Hell) or some thing like this in latin …?

http://mymemory.translated.net/en/Latin … ex-inferis

Another idea..in his cipher, Z had stated: ‘I will not give you my name’. It seems to be obvious that he did not. However, the opposite might be the true:

First of all, he talks about giving his name. ‘Not’ giving his name could have two reasons. Either he simply didn’t write it into the cipher OR he actually did write his name into the cipher but didn’t ‘give’ it. Latter would mean that Z had actually encrypted his name (which means that he doesn’t ‘give’ it, although it’s there). In the past, some people have assumed that those ‘fillers’ Z had used at the end of the cipher are simply what they appear to be, fillers. Others have assumed that those fillers, 18 symbols/letters, actually do represent his name (e.g. as an anagram).

Now there is a problem with the filler theory: IF Z had wanted to use a filler, the first ‘E’ of the fillers would already ‘fill’ the end of the cipher. It would be absolutely sufficient to make the cipher non-decryptable from its end.

After using one filler, however, there is no reason at all to add any additional line of symbols/letters.

He could have had added two, three or even one hundred lines without any reason, alright. But it was not necessary because there already was a filler present in the second but last line of the cipher. Therefore, most likely, the last line of the cipher must somehow represent something. For example his name, which he didn’t ‘give’. Supporting this theory is the fact that Z had stressed the message of ‘not giving his name’ in the last sentence before those filler symbols (announcing it).

So far, there was no success in handling those symbols as an anagram. That does not mean that the 18 letters had not been encrypted with any other encryption method. To support this idea, let’s have a look on the letter distribution of this ‘filler’ part:

EBEORIETEMETHHPITI

E: 5 (27.8%)
T: 3 (16.7%)
I: 3 (16.7%)
H: 2 (11.1%)
B, O, R, M, P: 1 (5.6%)

What we can see is that this is not a normal distribution of alphabetical letters. Not only that the ‘E’ is present more than twice often than statistically expected, even the second/third most frequent letters are more present than any other second or third most frequent alphabetical letter (e.g. T or A, usually ~8-10%). So obviously three letters are way too frequent than expected. In fact, the three most frequent ciphertext letters, E, T and I, actually do represent a total of >61% of the cipher. Whatever this is, it is not a normal frequency of alphabetical letters.

There are other encryption methods which may lead to such an uncommon ciphertext distribution ( http://cryptogram.org/cipher_types.html currently offline but should be available).

So far it was not tested if any of those other encryption methods worked on those 18 letters. If Z’s name is hidden behind this part of the cipher (e.g. by using a Polybius square), a solution of his name might be found.

Transforming the ‘cipher’ via the method of Bazeries, for example, would lead to the cleartext VFVSIRVTVHVTMMXRTR. Of course this solution is not correct either. Also Bazeries does not change the distribution of letters. Nevertheless, there do exist other encryption methods that could change the letter distribution, too.

QT

Update:

For the EBEORIETEMETHHPITI phrase, the following decryption methods do not lead to any useful result:

ADFGX/ADFVGX
Amsco
Baconian
Bazeries
Caesar
Caesar progressing
Checkerboard
Columnar transposition
Condi
Digrafid
Foursquare
Grandpré
Grille
Gromark
Gronsfeld
Headlines
Homophonic
Monome/Dinome
Morbit
Myszkowski
Nihilist substitution
Null
Numbered Key
Periodic Gromark
Playfair
Pollux
Ragbaby
Railfence
Redefence
Route transposition
Running key
Syllabary
Tridigital
Vigénère
Vigénère (‘Zodiac’)
Vigénère (‘Zodiac’) shifted

QT

Hi guys, this is just going to be me applying incredibly basic logic to EBEORIETEMETHHPITI. I don’t have any background in deciphering or analysing but I just thought I’d throw this idea out there.

Feel free to state this is flawed or is way too basic to be plausible, also if it’s been done before.

Re-reading the 408 cipher, I thought that the misspellings of words by the Zodiac could have a meaning. The words he misspells are: Forrest, Dangeroue, Anamal, Thae, Paradice, Thei, Sloi, Collectiog

My line of thinking was the letters used by the Zodiac represent the actual letter in the spelling, ie. the ‘E’ at the end of Dangeroue represents "S". I assumed the mistakes work in both ways(S could also represent E in the previous example).

E->S,I or T.
I->A,E,Y or W
A->I or S
C-> S
O-> N

Also assuming some of the letters in EBEORIETEMETHHPITI could be correct, I began trying to make phrases, also assuming that EBEORIETEMETHHPITI was read left to right and the letters were in order.

So far the one that has peaked my interest is "I BE OR I SEE ME", being made up of EBEORIETEME of the phrase. The variations are also endless, the E after M could also represent T, thus making "I BE OR I SEE MT"(Mount…?).

I tripped up on the two H’s as they are all correct in the rest of the cipher, however, the Zodiac spells Forest, Forrest…. Leading me to think one of the H’s can be ignored.

I assume the beginning is "I BE OR…" and that the last word is likely "PITY" (I can represent Y). The phrase "I BE OR WE…." can also be made.

It’s 1am and I don’t have the brain power right now to keep creating words

Hi guys, this is just going to be me applying incredibly basic logic to EBEORIETEMETHHPITI. I don’t have any background in deciphering or analysing but I just thought I’d throw this idea out there.

Feel free to state this is flawed or is way too basic to be plausible, also if it’s been done before.

Re-reading the 408 cipher, I thought that the misspellings of words by the Zodiac could have a meaning. The words he misspells are: Forrest, Dangeroue, Anamal, Thae, Paradice, Thei, Sloi, Collectiog

My line of thinking was the letters used by the Zodiac represent the actual letter in the spelling, ie. the ‘E’ at the end of Dangeroue represents "S". I assumed the mistakes work in both ways(S could also represent E in the previous example).

E->S,I or T.
I->A,E,Y or W
A->I or S
C-> S
O-> N

Also assuming some of the letters in EBEORIETEMETHHPITI could be correct, I began trying to make phrases, also assuming that EBEORIETEMETHHPITI was read left to right and the letters were in order.

So far the one that has peaked my interest is "I BE OR I SEE ME", being made up of EBEORIETEME of the phrase. The variations are also endless, the E after M could also represent T, thus making "I BE OR I SEE MT"(Mount…?).

I tripped up on the two H’s as they are all correct in the rest of the cipher, however, the Zodiac spells Forest, Forrest…. Leading me to think one of the H’s can be ignored.

I assume the beginning is "I BE OR…" and that the last word is likely "PITY" (I can represent Y). The phrase "I BE OR WE…." can also be made.

It’s 1am and I don’t have the brain power right now to keep creating words

it’s a good idea but runs into a similar issue – any time you have variables like that you could have thousands of different results and no way to tell which one is "correct".

Interesting idea, hedgeytrimmer, but as you yourself pointed out, the variations are almost endless if you approach it that way (especially if you start ignoring letters).

On a side note, if the last letters in the plaintext had been EIRZMLTDAHKEICLAIO or something similar, where a normally dubious approach like anagramming leads to an immediate, obvious, and relevant answer* that just screams, "This has got to be intentional!", then I’d say, sure, that’s another bit of play on his part, but since that’s not the situation we find ourselves in, I am skeptical that there is anything to be found here. (*IAMTHEZODIACKILLER)

I think the most likely explanation is that these letters are, as glurk said, just filler. I’d love to be wrong though.

Most of us have accepted that they could actually be fillers (I don’t say they are not..). But if so, then the last line would be a complete line of filler symbols. Why should Z add a full line consisting of fillers only? One filler would have been enough, wouldn’t it? And then he even tells us that he would not give us his name..big hmm..

One thing for sure: 61% for three letters is quite unusual, even for names.

"I HOPE IT BE TIME THERE"

would be anagrammed cleartext, btw, but the grammar is not the best one..

QT

Gah Zodiac, why you gotta make your case so interesting, yet so hard to solve.

The amount of what ifs in this is just crazy, his apparent intelligence to me was why I considered the fact his misspellings could have been deliberate, but it’s equally likely he actually misspelled a number of words in his cipher.

Most of us have accepted that they could actually be fillers (I don’t say they are not..). But if so, then the last line would be a complete line of filler symbols. Why should Z add a full line consisting of fillers only? One filler would have been enough, wouldn’t it?
QT

Nope. Not to divide into three equal parts.

408 / 3 = 136
391 / 3 = 130.3333333333333

The 408 was divided into three equal parts, 17 x 8, right?

-glurk

Most of us have accepted that they could actually be fillers (I don’t say they are not..). But if so, then the last line would be a complete line of filler symbols. Why should Z add a full line consisting of fillers only? One filler would have been enough, wouldn’t it?
QT

Nope. Not to divide into three equal parts.

408 / 3 = 136
391 / 3 = 130.3333333333333

The 408 was divided into three equal parts, 17 x 8, right?

-glurk

Good argument..

QT

To make this cipher into 3 equal parts he needed the last 18 characters as filler or, any position within the cipher, if i understand correctly. This is assuming that the last 18 characters mean absolutely nothing. Would this be correct?

Lets say for instance that the last 18 characters actually did mean something. If he had added one more character he would have needed an additional 3 lines of filler. Would this be correct?

A long time ago people were calling or writing in and claiming that the last 18 characters anagrammed to Robert Emmet the Hippi. Most people dont accept this as the anagram wasnt perfect; it was missing a couple of letters. Is it possible the anagram was technically correct and only flawed to avoid an additional 3 lines of filler?

Not trying to make a case here. Im genuinely asking so that i may have a better understanding.

Soze