Thought it would be fun to post my old work on the 340 for thoughts and comments. Curious if anyone sees merit in my essentially pen and paper method to try and suss out a transposition scheme.
First off, I want to say I believe the 340 was solved by D Oranchak, Jarlve and Sam.
I’m also not trying to add any further readings or ideas. I just wanted to post my methods – even though they didn’t work!
I worked on the 340 on and off for the last few years. At times it really took over my life!
I focused on a pen and paper approach. After much research and study, much of which happened through reading posts here, I came to believe what most here on the board did – that there was some kind of transposition jumbling the cipher.
I was interested in the pivots, and other patterns in the untransposed cipher. However, many on the board seemed to dismiss pursuit of patterns in the text – but to me, if the best minds thought transposition was at play, then patterns were exactly what we should be looking for.
So. I followed these as far as I could… Here is basically what I worked, hours on end, late at night, staring at my computer screen.
My first step was to actually just print out the code and start looking for patterns. Many of these were found before – and I incorporated those into my notes. I commute on a ferry and so many of my boat rides were spent drawing lines and circling patterns. Can only imagine what ppl thought as they strolled by. I’m sure the following exercise will look familiar to 340 nerds.
My conclusions from these exercises, were that these patterns generally appeared in pairs. (red pair, green pair, yellow pair, pink pair, etc)
The pairs also ‘read’ in the same direction – I didn’t find many – if any, of these in a reverse left/right configuration.
This made me wonder about a highly repetitive plaintext or a "woven" transposition pattern.
Looking for patterns involved looking for visual symbol matches in small areas. I started to notice what I thought were possibilities for what I’ll call "reciprocal" matches. Basically I would feel like some sub-patterns were showing up that suggested two symbols possibly standing for the same plaintext. So for example, let’s say I’ve identified two patterns. Hovering inside of one of them are maybe two F symbols, but in the other there would be two L symbols in the corresponding pattern. So if you let L=F, the major pattern could expand to include them. Likewise one pattern could have an L and an F together in relation to the larger pattern, and in the matching larger pattern, the L and F would be swapped. This is why I called them "reciprocal", like a reciprocal fraction.
My next step was where I kind of left planet earth for a month or two or three. I brought 340 into a computer program where I could make the background transparent, and overlay the 340 with itself, aligning various patterns. This made it much easier to identify clear patterns as well as the reciprocal patterns. I’m not sure if this next image makes sense – but they are blocks of the 340 where I was hunting for these reciprocal symbols. In this case there are three blocks – I’m overlaying 1-2 (first two blocks), 2-3 (middle two blocks) and 1-3 (last two blocks)
Anyway, I made notes and lists concerning all the patterns I could find. I noticed general things happening that suggested a diagonal transposition – but not the one that turned out to be right. When the 340 was solved, I took my master list of potential reciprocals and checked them against the key to see if they could have indeed stood for the same plaintext letters. In the end out of maybe 15 suspected matches I only got maybe 3? Not worth posting the results here haha!
Anyway, I have many, many computer files and am happy to share more if anyone is interested.
Looking at it in hindsight now, with the solution known, I think you could have worked on this approach forever and not gotten anywhere. Not saying that to be mean, just being honest.
Even those of us that use computer approaches don’t just "set it and forget it." As Dave’s video shows, it takes a human to recognize meaningful phrases and suss them out. And even with Jarlve’s AZDecrypt, which is a much more powerful than my ZKDecrypto, it still took human work (and eyes) to spot the real solution.
I think it was both the power and speed of modern computing hardware, and dedicated people using it that led to the solution. And no disrespect to anyone, I just think that’s what it took, and I guess the time was right, and as Dave admits, some good luck was involved as well.
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I don’t believe in monsters.
I was on the Scytale sKytale horse for ages. it was about 90% of my hundreds of posts..i worked it using hand made scytals inside out and upside down all ways of thinking because i knew it was made by hand not a computer…
i was also pretty sure it was made in sections because of the 408.. … halves two thirds, columns yada. yada
THE CIPHER COMMUNITY ON MORFS ZODIACKILLERSITE.COM KEPT THE 340 ALIVE WITH TENS OF THOUSANDS OF POSTS AND THATS WHY WE HAVE A SOLVE.
cheers
I was on the Scytale sKytale horse for ages. it was about 90% of my hundreds of posts..i worked it using hand made scytals inside out and upside down all ways of thinking because i knew it was made by hand not a computer…
i was also pretty sure it was made in sections because of the 408.. … halves two thirds, columns yada. yadaTHE CIPHER COMMUNITY ON MORFS ZODIACKILLERSITE.COM KEPT THE 340 ALIVE WITH TENS OF THOUSANDS OF POSTS AND THATS WHY WE HAVE A SOLVE.
cheers
You should post images of the home made scytales! In fact it could be a great thread to post images of peoples "homework" on 340.
Looking at it in hindsight now, with the solution known, I think you could have worked on this approach forever and not gotten anywhere. Not saying that to be mean, just being honest.
Even those of us that use computer approaches don’t just "set it and forget it." As Dave’s video shows, it takes a human to recognize meaningful phrases and suss them out. And even with Jarlve’s AZDecrypt, which is a much more powerful than my ZKDecrypto, it still took human work (and eyes) to spot the real solution.
I think it was both the power and speed of modern computing hardware, and dedicated people using it that led to the solution. And no disrespect to anyone, I just think that’s what it took, and I guess the time was right, and as Dave admits, some good luck was involved as well.
And yet the solution had already been proposed before the cipher was constructed:-
https://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/the-diagonal-structure-of-the-340-cipher
I was on the Scytale sKytale horse for ages. it was about 90% of my hundreds of posts..i worked it using hand made scytals inside out and upside down all ways of thinking because i knew it was made by hand not a computer…
i was also pretty sure it was made in sections because of the 408.. … halves two thirds, columns yada. yadaTHE CIPHER COMMUNITY ON MORFS ZODIACKILLERSITE.COM KEPT THE 340 ALIVE WITH TENS OF THOUSANDS OF POSTS AND THATS WHY WE HAVE A SOLVE.
cheers
You should post images of the home made scytales! In fact it could be a great thread to post images of peoples "homework" on 340.
so close in some respects but so far we did do it in halves later on
viewtopic.php?f=81&t=2617&hilit=scytale&start=700#p44087
viewtopic.php?f=81&t=2617&hilit=scytale&start=720#p44145
My conclusions from these exercises, were that these patterns generally appeared in pairs.
Fisherman’s Friend – Great work, imo. So far my expectations regarding such ‘patterns’ were rather low as they could occur accidentially. However, your work actually shows that those patterns might not only be accidential: Especially the magenta BY.. section is extremely unlikely to occur twice. Take alone a group of 6 reoccurring symbols is a chance equally to 63x62x61x60x59x58 or roughly 1 out of 50 million potential patterns.
Thus, indeed, your brain/computer/work has paid off, finding such pattern. And it was not the only one. Those patterns could imply the use of the same term twice, e.g. SHALLNot and SHALLNever. If that was the case, those patterns confirmed your theory of reciprocal / woven structure of the cipher. Zodiac could easily have had cut his completed cipher into stripes with a pair of scissors – even partially using the Z408 code – to modify the result before re-writing it down.
I think it’s a good approach and may you want to get those symbols ‘back together’ so they’d form a word sequence? To get back the so-to-be-thought original cipher?
@Glurk:
Those patterns do not at all comply with your ‘solution’, do they? Thus, your self-created one might not be the only / correct one..this to be clarified for once. Don’t want to be mean, just being honest. Obviously there is more than one brain here around, at least if someone can see the same patterns..well, like above.
QT
*ZODIACHRONOLOGY*
QT-
What in the hell are you talking about? There is no ‘my’ solution, I’ve never once presented one, ever. Dave and team solved the 340, the FBI confirmed it, submitted it to the SFPD, and took it off the unsolved list.
It’s since been verified by multiple cryptographers, see this video for one example:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hIrOftXgibg
At some point, facing reality might serve you well.
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I don’t believe in monsters.
Reality? Ok, I like that:
1) It was you who referred to a ‘solution’ (not important if you made it or not, you mentioned it to be a solution).
2) "Verified by multiple cryptographers" – First of all, it should be verfied by cryptoanalysts, not ‘cryptographers’. Second, the guy in that video is a self-proclaimed ‘Cryptospecialist’. Now please, would you explain what exactly you mean with "verfied"? Are you talking about media reports? Or hobby cryptospecialist’s youtube videos?
I think it simply is mean to tell someone that he ‘not ‘have gotten anywhere’; despite such very obvious patterns. If one doesn’t see those, he/she might need an OPTICIAN, imo.
But anyway, let’s forget about it, no need to continue this way of discussion. I appreciate FF’s valuable contribution to this thread.
One question remains, though: The patterns above, were they accidential or not? Because if not, and they do not look as if they were, those patterns are KEY to solving the cipher (the way Z had decrypted it originally). In some article it was mentioned that Z may have had access to a computer to set up his 408 cipher. If THAT being true, eg. him working on such projects at Mare Island, the patterns might indicate such computer encryption method for the 340, too (dBase?).
QT
*ZODIACHRONOLOGY*
The "guy in that video" is Nils Kopal, who is working in a PostDoctoral position at the Univ. of Siegen. He’s written a ton of research papers as well. He’s the main author of CrypTool also:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?us … l=en&oi=ao
Dave and team’s solution has also been verified by Dan Olson, head of the FBI’s CRRU Unit, Nick Pelling of the CipherMysteries website, and Klaus Schmeh:
https://44con.com/previous-speakers/klaus-schmeh/
As well as at least one other FBI crypto specialist (they don’t release their names). And that’s only the ones that I know of. The validity of their solution has not been challenged by a single qualified cryptanalyst that I am aware of, and I’ve looked.
I also did not call anyone stupid or imply any such thing. Simply put, the cipher was solved by smart people who wrote a smart program and used the computer as a tool (which it is) to more quickly go through the possibilities. It could have been done by hand, but it probably would have taken 5000 years instead of 50.
Indeed, the cipher solution can easily be verified by hand, using pencil and paper, or carving it into a stone tablet, or whatever method you choose. Maybe you should try it yourself.
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I don’t believe in monsters.
2) "Verified by multiple cryptographers" – First of all, it should be verfied by cryptoanalysts, not ‘cryptographers’. Second, the guy in that video is a self-proclaimed ‘Cryptospecialist’. Now please, would you explain what exactly you mean with "verfied"? Are you talking about media reports? Or hobby cryptospecialist’s youtube videos
Do you think the FBI’s cryptology unit are hobbyists? The 340 is solved.
2) "Verified by multiple cryptographers" – First of all, it should be verfied by cryptoanalysts, not ‘cryptographers’. Second, the guy in that video is a self-proclaimed ‘Cryptospecialist’. Now please, would you explain what exactly you mean with "verfied"? Are you talking about media reports? Or hobby cryptospecialist’s youtube videos
Do you think the FBI’s cryptology unit are hobbyists? The 340 is solved.
Just let him continue trying to force a straight homophonic substitution into the cipher. He has an entire thread dedicated to it. It’s been entertaining watching him try for the last eight years or so.
2) "Verified by multiple cryptographers" – First of all, it should be verfied by cryptoanalysts, not ‘cryptographers’. Second, the guy in that video is a self-proclaimed ‘Cryptospecialist’. Now please, would you explain what exactly you mean with "verfied"? Are you talking about media reports? Or hobby cryptospecialist’s youtube videos
Do you think the FBI’s cryptology unit are hobbyists? The 340 is solved.
Just let him continue trying to force a straight homophonic substitution into the cipher. He has an entire thread dedicated to it. It’s been entertaining watching him try for the last eight years or so.
Nobody can hold it against QT for trying to find a solution along with everyone else, their commitment kept up morale to finally crack the 340.
But the fact is, it is solved.
