morf13, Subject: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Fri Sep 30, 2011 10:32 am

Could you guys that are great with ciphers, please try these possible solutons for the 340 and see if you find anything of interest:

In the 340, could the N,A, and M symbols stand for the letters, A, L, or N? And could the E, K, and crosshair symbols stand for the letters H, F,M or R???

"If" these symbols and letters above correspond, I think there is a strong chance that the ‘M’ symbol likely stands for the letter A, and the ‘K’ symbol likely is either a letter F or a letter R.

Any help is appreciated, thanks

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Fri Sep 30, 2011 6:34 pm

Those COULD be the right translations Morf. The thing to do is to plug them in and see if it forms a coherent message in the REST of the code.

I will try it this weekend, you yourself can also try it using doranchak’s webtoy.

http://oranchak.com/zodiac/webtoy/

At the site above is a fun and interesting little tool to help solve the Zodiac 340 Code.

You just type in a letter for a symbol, and it puts that translation throughout the code.

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Fri Sep 30, 2011 7:49 pm

Those COULD be the right translations Morf. The thing to do is to plug them in and see if it forms a coherent message in the REST of the code.

I will try it this weekend, you yourself can also try it using doranchak’s webtoy.

http://oranchak.com/zodiac/webtoy/

At the site above is a fun and interesting little tool to help solve the Zodiac 340 Code.

You just type in a letter for a symbol, and it puts that translation throughout the code.

Thanks will try it

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Sat Oct 01, 2011 6:33 am

Possibilities I see…

Column 15,line 11…the M symbol could be the letter A, and to the right of that, the K symbol could be the letter R…meaning a word could be there on that line….cAR,cARe,ARe, fAR,smARt etc….of course I could be wrong, but think I may be on to something.

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Sat Oct 01, 2011 6:54 am

Possibilities I see…

Column 15,line 11…the M symbol could be the letter A, and to the right of that, the K symbol could be the letter R…meaning a word could be there on that line….cAR,cARe,ARe, fAR,smARt etc….of course I could be wrong, but think I may be on to something.

The M symbol likely being the letter A, could also make it possible that the K symbol to the right of it may represent the letter F…and make that line read ‘AF’, possible words AFter,AFternoon, sAFe, etc

I think so far that the H symbol may be the letter I. The E symbol may be the letter F. The M symbol may very likely be the letter A.

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Sat Oct 01, 2011 7:51 pm

Zodiac sent the 340 and gave the cops 6 months to solve it. They failed, so 6 months later he sent the ‘MY NAME IS’ cipher, in which he asks "by the way, have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is_____"

He seems like he is repeating a phrase from the 340 cipher…."MY NAME IS". Does anyone thin it is possible that Z used the same phrase MY NAME IS in the 340? If so, where may it lie within the 340?? The beginning? The end? The middle where those weird lines are at the beginning and end of the line?

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Sat Oct 01, 2011 8:20 pm

Graysmith and me and some others think the 340 fourth line begins "see a name".

doranchak, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Tue Oct 04, 2011 9:55 am

Here are the results for all the ways to assign plaintext letters "A","L","N" to cipher text letters "N","A","M", and all the ways to assign plaintext letters "H","F","M","R" to cipher text letters "E","K","crossed circle" (there are 1728 possible combinations):

http://oranchak.com/zodiac/morf-results.html

Maybe something there will stand out for you.

Decoding those symbols reveals only 33 out of 340 (or 9.7%) of the plaintext. Makes it hard to see what words could fit.

By contrast, if you guessed the plaintext assignments for the symbols "+","B","backwards p","|","backwards c", and "F", you’d reveal 77 out of 340 (or 22.6%) of the plaintext. Might be more bang for your buck.

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Tue Oct 04, 2011 11:58 am

Here are the results for all the ways to assign plaintext letters "A","L","N" to cipher text letters "N","A","M", and all the ways to assign plaintext letters "H","F","M","R" to cipher text letters "E","K","crossed circle" (there are 1728 possible combinations):

http://oranchak.com/zodiac/morf-results.html

Maybe something there will stand out for you.

Decoding those symbols reveals only 33 out of 340 (or 9.7%) of the plaintext. Makes it hard to see what words could fit.

By contrast, if you guessed the plaintext assignments for the symbols "+","B","backwards p","|","backwards c", and "F", you’d reveal 77 out of 340 (or 22.6%) of the plaintext. Might be more bang for your buck.

Thanks Doranchak, but I have no idea what I am looking at in the photo link you posted :scratch: I think the "+" symbol could be any one of the following letters that are often seen back to back:

+= the letter E- tEEns, sEEn, bEEN, etc
+=the letter L- kiLL, wiLL, hiLL, etc
+= the letter O, sOOn,nOOn, etc
+= the letter P, haPPy,etc
+= R, huRRy, etc
+= S, miSS, etc

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Tue Oct 04, 2011 1:51 pm

Morf if this helps feel free to use it. What Bullitt/Obiwan/Kite put together as their estimate of what the RAW Graysmith solution could have been, before he mucked it up, the + was an L. And if you remember a little experiment I did a few months ago, given the context you and some others agreed that was likely the right translation. It produces LEO, SHALL, BELLI (anagram), and several other words.

See the problem you are having is what Doranchak suggested, the POI name alone does not give you enough translations in the code to really solve it. You have to solve other symbols in the code. You might want to try plugging in some translations from other proposed solves. I think the 8th line is THESE FOOLSHALL SEE, the 4th line starts as SEE A NAME. But their are numerous proposed solves out there, most equally "valid" which is to say most equally unproven!

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Tue Oct 04, 2011 10:48 pm

Morf if this helps feel free to use it. What Bullitt/Obiwan/Kite put together as their estimate of what the RAW Graysmith solution could have been, before he mucked it up, the + was an L. And if you remember a little experiment I did a few months ago, given the context you and some others agreed that was likely the right translation. It produces LEO, SHALL, BELLI (anagram), and several other words.

See the problem you are having is what Doranchak suggested, the POI name alone does not give you enough translations in the code to really solve it. You have to solve other symbols in the code. You might want to try plugging in some translations from other proposed solves. I think the 8th line is THESE FOOLSHALL SEE, the 4th line starts as SEE A NAME. But their are numerous proposed solves out there, most equally "valid" which is to say most equally unproven!

Thanks for the advice. I will try a couple things. There are some great cipher people here, and any help is appreciated.

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Wed Oct 05, 2011 12:23 am

In my mind, just based on the % probability posted by Oranchak, I think that the ‘+’ symbol = the letter E. This is based on the fact that the ‘+’ symbol is the most frequently used symbol in the cipher,(24 times) and that the letter E, is the most common letter. Also, two E’s side by side is very common in many words.TEEN, NEED, etc

The 3rd most common symbol in the cipher is the ‘9’ symbol(used 11 times). That may correspond with the letter O which is also a letter used quite frequently, and is 4th on the list of expected letters frequency used by Zodiac and also is found in many words back to back, SOON,NOON,etc.

I think if you put 1000 WHEEL OF FORTUNE players in a room, and gave them a couple vowels, they could crack this cipher…

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Wed Oct 05, 2011 3:41 pm

Question…anybody ever make a list of all the words used by Z in his letters & ciphers, and the frequency? Maybe we can get an idea of what words to look for in the 340.

doranchak, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Wed Oct 05, 2011 3:45 pm

Here’s one: http://wiki.zodiac-ciphers.dreamhosters.com/wiki/Word_counts_from_the_Zodiac_Killer%27s_correspondences

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Wed Oct 05, 2011 3:55 pm

Here’s one: http://wiki.zodiac-ciphers.dreamhosters.com/wiki/Word_counts_from_the_Zodiac_Killer%27s_correspondences

Thanks!

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Tue Oct 11, 2011 8:27 pm

I spent hours today messing with the 340 using the Doranchak webtool:
http://oranchak.com/zodiac/webtoy/
And the lists of words used by Zodiac, and the frequency he used them:
http://wiki.zodiac-ciphers.dreamhosters … spondences

I am convinced (at least in my own mind)that the backwards B symbol represents the letter V, and the + symbol the letter E. Thats as far as I have gone, because I lose my mind when adding more letters to the puzzle.

If I am right, then on line 9, spaces 4-6, the + symbols wrapped around the backwards B symbol, may very well be the letters EVE. In the 340, the backwards B is used only 3 times. In everyday writing, the letter V is not used alot.

Zodiac used the following words:
NEVER (used pretty often)
EVERYTHING
SEVEN
EVEN
EVERY
EVENING
CLEVER

Also the possibility that the backwards B could be the letter L, also, giving us the word ELE, possibly tELEphone, or ELEvator,or ELEven.

Either way, I think the backwards B is likely the letter V or L, and the + symbol is likely the letter E.

Anyone care to play around with those couple letters and see what you get?

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Wed Oct 12, 2011 6:10 pm

I spent hours today messing with the 340 using the Doranchak webtool:
http://oranchak.com/zodiac/webtoy/
And the lists of words used by Zodiac, and the frequency he used them:
http://wiki.zodiac-ciphers.dreamhosters … spondences

I am convinced (at least in my own mind)that the backwards B symbol represents the letter V, and the + symbol the letter E. Thats as far as I have gone, because I lose my mind when adding more letters to the puzzle.

If I am right, then on line 9, spaces 4-6, the + symbols wrapped around the backwards B symbol, may very well be the letters EVE. In the 340, the backwards B is used only 3 times. In everyday writing, the letter V is not used alot.

Zodiac used the following words:
NEVER (used pretty often)
EVERYTHING
SEVEN
EVEN
EVERY
EVENING
CLEVER

Also the possibility that the backwards B could be the letter L, also, giving us the word ELE, possibly tELEphone, or ELEvator,or ELEven.

Either way, I think the backwards B is likely the letter V or L, and the + symbol is likely the letter E.

Anyone care to play around with those couple letters and see what you get?

I think I am on the right track with the EVE.

"+" symbol= the letter E
"9" symbol= the letter L
‘M" symbol= the letter N
"T" symbol= the letter I
BACKWARDS B symbol= the letter V
"B" symbol= the letter E
"Z" symbol= the letter R
"y" symbol= M

Try plugging in those solutions….nothing is forced, and the word MELVIN comes up. And everything else looks good too. After that, is where I get stuck

There is no shifts, etc, its just straight forward just like the solved Z cipher was.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Thu Oct 13, 2011 4:35 pm

For the record, I stand by my belief that the Raw Graysmith as presented by Bullitt/Obiwan/Kite, with the cryptic word finds by Kite and myself, is 99.9% likely to be the correct solution to the 340, or at least a largely correct solution. In this solution the "+" is "L", and we get THEO SEE A NAME THESE FOOLSHALL SEE, etc.

But we must always keep an open mind and acknowledge that we could be partially wrong, and Morf asked me to look at his work.

Very interesting!

This is Morf’s decode:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
0 L
17 L E M
34 N E R
51 L L L E E
68 N E E
85 L
102 E
119 E M E
136 N E V E R
153 E E L
170 E M L V N
187 N E
204 E
221 V E E
238 R E
255 L N
272 E E
289 E E L
306 M
323 N L R E

And a screen capture with ENGINEER to start the 3rd line:

It is a very interesting start, Morf, but I am not yet seeing enough complete words and sentences to make me think it is likely correct. But you could be on to something, there are some good parts here, but not yet a coherent whole.

Morf I would suggest using as much as you can from the Graysmith Raw – remember that had BELLI as an anagram in it!

OK I just took my own suggestion and did it!

Here is Morf’s partial decode with elements from the Raw Graysmith/Bullitt/Obiwan/Kite decode, also with a few independent solves by me (such as "LOOK" at the end of the 9th line).

bentley, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Thu Oct 13, 2011 5:38 pm

Interesting. E is of course a likely candidate for +, being the most used letter, however Z knew this of course, and in the 408 used several characters to represent E. Backwards B could well be one of the E chars in 340.

Any straight homophonic solution to the 340 would have been solved eons ago, so at this point when playing with the webtool I think we need to consider misspelled words, words going in different directions (as the RJI, B.C "pivots" and crosswords in other Z letters). Also quite possible if this is the sort of solution we’re after, many of the other characters may be filler. Like what AK is doing, though I would expect more of it to make sense, 50% at least.

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:15 pm

Interesting. E is of course a likely candidate for +, being the most used letter, however Z knew this of course, and in the 408 used several characters to represent E. Backwards B could well be one of the E chars in 340.

Any straight homophonic solution to the 340 would have been solved eons ago, so at this point when playing with the webtool I think we need to consider misspelled words, words going in different directions (as the RJI, B.C "pivots" and crosswords in other Z letters). Also quite possible if this is the sort of solution we’re after, many of the other characters may be filler. Like what AK is doing, though I would expect more of it to make sense, 50% at least.

In my solution, (not really a solution, more like a possibility), I am looking at it straight forward, no shifts, etc. I dont think Graysmith’s decoding made alot of sense, incoherent, etc
When Z’s first cipher was cracked, it made perfect sense, all of it was coherent, and besides the usual spelling errors here and there, it was pretty forthright. To me. Graysmith’s solve is not coherent, so for my own purposes, I am completely disregarding it.

I personally believe that if this cipher is solved, it will read much like the original solved cipher by Z(of course with different subject matter and words).

I spent alot of time staring at the 340, and as Bentley stated, the + symbol is the most common one, and the letter E is the most common letter used in the alphabet, so Z certainly would have used more thanone symbol to represent the letter E, which in my solution,I have more than one symbol representing the letter E, the + is just one of them. But I started with the one word that i thought was EVER or NEVER on line 9 with the pattern of +,backwards B, +. The backwards B was not used very much and I thought that it could be a letter like V, and I already suspected that the + was an E, so it looked good. And when I filled it in, with NEVER, the word MELVIN seemed very likely on line 11 with the Y/B/9/backward B/T/M….MELVIN. It just fit without forcing it, and without looking for it, and that is a word that may very well be in the 340. I personally am convinced that line 9 contains the word NEVER, and line 11 contains the word MELVIN. After that, there are alot of double symbols which may be double L’s, or E’s.

My problem is that once I start trying to look for certain words or force words in beyond this point, I start going off track.

I am not saying I am right, and I know there are some good cipher people here. I hope they can look into this possibility and either think I am onto something or rule it out. Again, there are no shifts, etc, its just a straight forward cipher like Z originally sent, at leats thats my opinion. I think Z wanted it solved, and thats why he sent the MY NAME IS cipher in which he stated "by the way, did you solve the last cipher I sent?" I dont think he went way out of his way to make the hardest cipher ever, I think it just worked out that way.

By the way, in the solution of mine AK posted, the word ENGINEER is prominent. I have no idea if it is right,it just happened to fit right in there. For a long word like that to fall into place, just seemed like it belonged, but in my mind, I am concentrating on the two words, NEVER & MELVIN.

By the way, I also think that Bentley is correct, I think that Zodiac’s deliberate misspelling of words may make it harder to solved. When we look at possible solutions, we are looking at the spelling as if we are spelling it correct. Z didnt do that.

bentley, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:41 pm

That’s interesting, I was just looking at the Belli letter today. Was Z serious in his plea for help? Drownding? Bit of an unusual term, though I suppose I’ve heard people in bad relationships use it. I do think he was serious, fwiw. Perhaps a vulnerable time for Z, too bad no real leads came from it.

Anyway, could Z have referred to Belli in the 340? Belli letter came a month after the 340, heck, maybe the 340 contains a plea to Belli for help, and when it wasn’t solved Z just wrote him directly. Who knows, though wasn’t Z after another lawyer before Belli (or was that the fake Z from the mental hospital?). One thing that I noticed again today, the Belli letter, though the lines are straight and characters in the best of Z’s printing, has a bunch of misspellings. They don’t appear to have been the result of being in a rush or drunken stupor like some of the other letters.

AK Wilks, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:51 pm

The caller asked for F Lee Bailey or Belli. If you look at the Mor/AK hybrid I postedit saya I give them lee too and the 7th line has BLLEI which could be an anagram for Belli and beneath it is Melvin.

morf13, Subject: Re: Help with the 340…possibilities??   Thu Oct 20, 2011 12:30 am

I am still giving this 340 a whirl using Doranchak’s webtoy http://oranchak.com/zodiac/webtoy/ & also using listed words from Zodiac’s past correspondences found here- http://wiki.zodiac-ciphers.dreamhosters … spondences

So far, this is what I have and I think it may be valid.

Anybody see any other possibilities to add to this?