Norse,
Not that I’m aware of (not good with terms). Maybe we could call them tokens?
Jumping a bit ahead. I like the idea in relation to the 340. But such a scheme, even partially, would greatly increase bigrams/trigrams counts. In the 340 the opposite is actual, more or less.
But still an interesting idea that could be expanded on, reversed.
For instance:
LL = ++
TT = M+
@daikon, you really should come back and make another challenge cipher. This time with similarly repetitive plaintext but with unpredictable homophone cycles. 
Hi!
Maybe you want to try to solve the following cipher? (I will call it „Largo_04“)
It is written in normal reading direction. Homophonic symbols are non-cyclic (choosen by random). No fillers or fake letters were used. No transposition was applied. The plaintext is maybe not the kind of text that you would expect but it is a valid message without abbreviations or misspelled words. It contains something that should prevent autosolvers from solving it. And no…it is not a german text 
I have not tried to resemble the characteristics of z340 since I just want to test an idea I had some days ago. If you are not able to break the cipher we maybe have a clue why z340 is not solvable. I have tried to solve Largo_04 with zkdecrypto and AZDecrypt without success. Unfortunately I have not so much experience with these tools and usually I just press the „solve“ buttons. In zkdecrypto I have also used the file for cribs and userdict. I am curious what you guys can do with the following test cipher. Probably you will break it within a minute.
The strange thing is that AZDecrypt produces a quite high scoring but the result contains no readable (valid) parts. Here we go:
C0m0CRn2UAr7KdUZ4 SFU-NyI14+IQEdajV dJGTSKzgQMg5VfABF L6klDRlDCCnoW8M3h UgqKOJ24b87G4drgB i+3tPmDw0CunGKebP dUe7XbpV-3d8ABt37 pkx0xlDCungPKKB1U LhpSJP+N+IdzbXItq 2zI5B1qiEWE2ZN+VU zIABFL+vDmDCwndjM Yr+8tp7736fSdZ3oW zpYZjF8sLAYLPMUoi -c2XSFGgBFL6JPcDx v0CwngMBT6WQ2KS8Y 15+doEo8Y4sJWOc57 IbTY1OhUgBiS3tOkl DkkDCwncfL1GK46Ec 7rJ4I3UWrXFWKJgBF LyHUI3NonwDJtcInl
I tried to solve Largo_04 with AZD on progressive mode for 57 attempts, and the solver locked in on this:
Score: 21504 Ioc: 718 M: 185 C: 340 S: 63
lanallystbertstho
ngtiandsondeasout
stsanteherhotobeg
icncalcallytheren
thatitsomersosehe
rnedonalallystomo
storimitiesebeder
insascallyhottest
inintonandsemidda
sedoesarahashantt
edbegincanallysur
renedirreconsheth
eirhugefibriorttr
ipsingshegictopas
callyhreachestner
sonstaterofthipor
dmarsinthernedinc
annallypoisstocap
retodetheighttheg
instdeatylatdpdyc
It looks like there may be a lot of repeated phrases. I marked some consistencies in red.
Hi!
Thanks for trying to break my cipher smokie treats!
Is someone trying to solve it at the moment or do you want me to post the solution so that we can discuss how to auto-solve a message like Largo_04?
Maybe a small hint:
The repeating pattern "ally" does not represent an exactly repeated pattern in the plaintext. The parts are similar to each other but differ a bit.
I gave it a try in azdecrypt as well and failed. I want to try other ideas but I probably won’t find time to implement them.
Hi,
since the last weeks has not happened very much I will post the solution to largo_04. I had the idea that Z maybe used numbers and letters like ":" or "-". That could be the case when he enciphered a list of victims and dates of killings. Such a text could look like this:
6-4-63:ROBERTDOMI NGOSANDLINDAEDWAR DSSANTABARBARABYG UN10-30-66:CHERIJ OBATESRIVERSIDEBY KNIFE4-9-68:STEVE DOERIVERSIDEBYFIR E12-20-68:BETTYLO UJENSENANDDAVIDFA RADAYLAKEHERMANRO ADBYGUN7-4-69:DAR LENEFERRINANDMICH AELMAGEAUBLUEROCK SPRINGSBYGUNSEP-2 7-69:BRYANHARTNEL LANDCECELIASHEPAR DVALLEJOBYKNIFE10 -11-69:PAULSTINEP RESIDIOHEIGHTSBYG UNZODIAC:9-SFPD:0
To break ciphers like these I created my own 5gram corpora for AZDecrypt. I looked for lists with fore- and surnames (male/female) and their frequencies. Additionally I used all Zodiac letters as a source for the 5grams. But when I used numbers or special characters AZDecrypt crashed. It seems it can only handle letters from A to Z. Unfortunately we can not do very much without Jarlves help or the source code 
Maybe anyone has an idea how to solve ciphers like these? What do you think….could this be the reason why z340 remains unsolved?
I recall some other plaintexts similar to yours that were just lists of names or places. They, too, could not be cracked by auto-solvers. So, it’s certainly a hypothesis that can’t easily be ruled out yet, until we have solvers that can break them. I do have the source for AZDecrypt (in FreeBASIC). Message me if you want it. I hope to one day port it to a web application so it is easier for everyone to use (such as going to a web site and simply pasting in the cipher text, then clicking "Solve").
I have been experimenting lately with checker board cipher where for ease of explanation a x y grid gives a plain text symbol whos location is defined by either 1 but mostly 2 cipher text symbols. This thinking has been seeded also due to the odd/even artifact of z340. A cipher such as this usually cater for space, punctuation and number symbols.
One experiment i wish to do is an xy heat map to see if there are any insights or anomalies. However being under a homophonic will likely mask any features.
Regards
Bart
Interesting idea, Bart. I wonder what it will turn up. Been meaning to go through all the ACA cipher types via https://github.com/WilliamMason/crypto-py and see how many of them have similar stats/anomalies as Z340.
Is the checkerboard cipher implemented on http://acaencodedecode.appspot.com/ the same cipher you’re considering?
Hi David.
Not really but checker boards have a broad interpretation and there are many that could be classed as sush.
The work i was looking at was unrelated to z340 however had some interesting quirks such as odd even phobia depending on the key set used which has been puzzling me for some time and that i see as a significant artifact.
Largo mentioned being able to encode extra symbols and so sparked my comment.
Attached is the checker i was using but there are many other types have been use for years by spys and the like.
Depending on the grid size many single symbols including bri grams etc can be encoded.
As noted in the attached a single symbol index exsist making it somewhat harder to attack the ciphertext.
Hey Largo,
doranchak told me you are working on a rewrite of AZdecrypt and I hope the new release will not discourage your project. It would be great to see another solver. Also, AZdecrypt now supports custom ngram alphabets, so you can make ngrams with numbers and/or whatever ASCII characters you wish.
I like your ciphers and included some with AZdecrypt if you don’t mind. Do you also have your second and third cipher available? Just for the record, largo4 solves to about 74% accuracy if you increase the ioc weight in AZdecrypt 1.0 to 15+ and should also solve in the older versions if you play around with the weights.
Score: 16058.97754174793 Ioc: 0.05535311469720632 FOROFWAROBERTDOMI NGOSANDLINDUEDWAR DSSINTABULBARABYG UNSHOWHOFFACHELIT OBITESRIVERSIDEBY KNIVEROMOFFASTOVE DOORIVERSIDEBYVIR ESTOTHOFFABETTYLO UTENSENANDDAVIDVI RADAYLIKEHERMANRO ADBYGUNTOROFMADAL LENEVERRINANDMICH AELMAGEPUBLUELOCK SPRINGSBYGUNSEPOT TOFMABLYINHURTNEL LANDCECELIPSHEPAR DVILLETOBYKNIVESH OSSOFMAPAULSTINEP RESIDIOHEIGHTSBYG UNTODIACAMOSVPDAH
Hi Jarlve! It is really great to see you back here. I look forward to your new releases and posts!
Hi Jarlve,
yes, I try to create a command line version of your solver in C++. Since I wrote a library in python to test my transpositioning ideas it would be great to send my results directly to your solver instead of starting a gui. If I had a command line version I also could "evolve" my ideas or use some kind of hill climbing instead of testing all permutations.
I am really pleased that you have included my test ciphers into AZDecrypt. Largo_02 and Largo_03 were some earlier attempts to trick AZDecrypt, but AZDecrypt won Here are the ciphers:
Largo_02 (I can not remember if I had created a cyclic or a non cyclic version):
kdQIBhdtiHiT9ysLT uXrm#q107kdtug7xh 3nn5GUIjPUZJgdrea b5u5ZMFfYZRB9VTdq 2DVLAyuuYdruKwIA3 tX4Pn8kXU5AJXoeFg nCX9dsyzjZL2ugfqm XFA1BXAqDuZ1KuXqq 5+myZqU#nRINLmX2q zlIGHugmXTefzlcAH u+YiwRcb5ZDjcGEht DAbcGgsVCU9uxj+nn Td7GERZ2ZUmZUPMUc b2D#uEyRBG#VmXTba lDujPtauCWi4xLp+t qM8gCqAcjj59aG#BI bNzSKdqUeuZrJpu5q eCqHTu#PUguu5Giq7 90V7IeyBvqeiABZGc gulCuucDUzmZA0HX+
Largo_02 plaintext:
DAVIDFARADAYBETTY LOUJENSENDARLENEF ERRINMIKEMAGEAUCE CILIASHEPARDBRYAN HARTNELLPAULSTINE ROBERTDOMINGOSCHE RIOBATESKATHLEENJ OHNSDONNALASSLONN IEJEANMERRITTJOHN SWINDLEJOYCESWIND LEPATRICIAAKINGFR ANCINETRIMBLEKERR YANNGRAHAMJAMESMI CHAELGERDNERJOYCE WALKERELIZABETHER NSTEINNIKKIBENEDI CTSUSANMCLAUGHLIN CINDYLEEMELLINANN BERNICEDUNCANDANI ELWILLIAMSJANEDOE
Largo_03 – Cyclic Version:
CDm0CRnMUgeVKdUZX yFUGfSIY3+djpIaq2 dJArosZEZBt47-KG1 zbHJ-N6KQgTMA5Vfg BFLyklDRl0CCnoWO2 XhUAjKPG73b8MJ4Ie gBiSXtpkxDxl0CunA rKKBYULhE+-H6qydI sb3dtzVNIQB1TiOWP 2Z5S7UfdgBFL+vDm0 CwnIjMY86etpV24yq SdZXoWsr1ZzFENLAY LH7UoiGcM3+FJgBFL 6-OcDxv0CwnAVBQyW T2KSP1Y5+Io8oe14f GWpcj7dbqY1rhUgBi 6XtEklDkk0CwncsLY JK3yHcMO-4IXUWP3F WKGABFLSW8azJKWeV pZN4+X6FZQ1r-YTbE
Largo_03 – Non Cyclic Version:
CDmDCRn7UgeVKdUZ3 SFUJQ+IY4SIqPdas2 I-AEozZEZBtXMJKG1 qbp-GQSKNAT7AjVjg BFLSkl0Rl0CCnoWeM XhUgjKOG2XbH7J3Ip ABi64tpkx0xl0Cung EKKB1ULhP+Ge+z+II TbXdtjVfdQB1NiPWH MZQ6VU5IABFLSv0m0 CwnIj21EyHtp2236z 6IZ4oWsr1ZsFOQLA1 LE2Uoi-cV36FJgBFL y-rc0xv0CwngMBqSW qMK6rY1j+doHo814N JWrcNVdbz1YOhUgBi S3tpklDkkDCwnc5LY GKXyrcVr-3IXUW84F WKGABFL+WpajGKW87 PZTXS4yFZT18-1qbr
Largo_03 Plaintext:
6-4-63:ROBERTDOMI NGOSANDLINDAEDWAR DSBECAMEMYFIRSTSL AVESSANTABARBARAB YGUN10-30-66:CHER IJOBATESRIVERSIDE BYKNIFE12-20-68:B ETTYLOUJENSENANDD AVIDFARADAYLAKEHE RMANROADBYGUN7-4- 69:DARLENEFERRINA NDMICHAELMAGEAUBL UEROCKSPRINGSBYGU NSEP-27-69:BRYANH ARTNELLANDCECELIA SHEPARDVALLEJOBYK NIFE10-11-69:PAUL STINEPRESIDIOHEIG HTSBYGUNHEWASTHER EMAININGMALESLAVE
Largo_03 Key:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ+-012345678 WVPDEABJKA104:CEAEAF8792NABY6-EGSEDSTURAEEA3NAORHILMNS-LRIIANRE
Maybe Largo_03 is a bit disturbing because of the last sentence. I had the idea that Z killed Paul Stine because on his previous attacks the male victims survied and he wanted to catch up.
Best regards
Largo
Hi Jarlve! It is really great to see you back here. I look forward to your new releases and posts!
Thanks Dave.
yes, I try to create a command line version of your solver in C++. Since I wrote a library in python to test my transpositioning ideas it would be great to send my results directly to your solver instead of starting a gui. If I had a command line version I also could "evolve" my ideas or use some kind of hill climbing instead of testing all permutations.
Would that mean the command line executable has to be restarted for each new variation your main program summons? And thus ngrams have to be reloaded time upon time or can you keep it in memory somehow. Thanks for your ciphers.
