Trav, what pivots? (You should also show the pivots, no?)
Interesting btw, yep.

Trav, what pivots? (You should also show the pivots, no?)
Interesting btw, yep.

http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/forum/ … 570#p22570

http://zodiackillerciphers.com/wiki/ind … tle=Pivots

So those "first and second pivots" spotted by whats-his-name, are these, then, outlined in yellow. Right.

Thanks for posting these interesting observations, trav. I wonder if similar patterns can be discovered in the 408.

So those "first and second pivots" spotted by whats-his-name, are these, then, outlined in yellow. Right.

Yup, that’s the puppies.

So those "first and second pivots" spotted by whats-his-name, are these, then, outlined in yellow. Right.

Yup, that’s the puppies.

Just to add, I assume that this went without saying but then we aren’t all spending our days staring at this thing. The ‘cluster’ also contains the previously mentioned FBc pattern. Highlighted here by T with a blue rectangle (sharp corners) viewtopic.php?f=81&t=856 . And below by moi. I’ve even included outlines for the pivotally challenged.

Another pattern intersects with the other pivot, too:

Another pattern intersects with the other pivot, too:

I like that one ’cause it lines up. Here it is in context with the pivots and my original repeated pattern.

Something that strikes me about those repeating patterns is that they both contain a diagonal offset. This is something that the pivots actually mostly consist of, I say mostly because obviously there is only one corner symbol in each but the rest of the pivot consist of matching diagonal offsets separated by 0,1,2 symbols working outward along each leg.

So I’m wondering about construction. As we all have for soooooo many years. The pivots though, what caused that, if anything? Something again we’ve wondered about but for slightly less years. And then there’s the "crop marks" with the diagonally filled box symbols in each corner (another spot of Dave’s). These are diagonal offsets as well.

I can’t stop seeing diagonal "things" in this cipher. Maybe it’s just staring fatigue from looking at as a grid all these years and trying to see something different. A grid of lines and columns. But it’s not lines and columns, it’s diagonals as well. Actually it could be viewed as just diagonals. Like so.

Now obviously this gives us two blocks of cipher text so lets ‘squish’ it all back together into the familiar grid.

Now. I’ve only given this a cursory glance but I think that’s just got rid of the pivots. Following this line of thinking, assume this was the start point before the cipher was further fiddled with, does that suggest that applying this approach of, lets call it extreme transposition, actually creates pivots?

I guess one way to test that wold be to apply this to the 408. (Something to do later.)

Just to close for now. We started, on this section, with two diagonal grids and the image above shows them reconstituted in order, ie the first grid followed bye second. You could of course, when faced with two grids, further complicate matters by reversing their order before recombining them. So this is how that would look.

This does something interesting to the starting columns in each instance. it reverses their offset pattern depending on which combining order you go for. I have illustrated this below along with the original 340 for reference. I’m not saying any of this means anything but I thought it was worth exploring after thinking about offsets.

I have for quite a while now felt that the 340 is a substitution cipher albeit ‘fiddled’ with. It’s not very scientific but throughout the hundreds of variations that I’ve ran through ZDK there seems to be something about the original, even though it doesn’t yield a solution, if it’s altered in certain ways it feels wrong. It seems to struggle to create anything coherent, sometimes even a single word. It’s like it wants to be a substitution cipher but it can’t quite make it. Half phrases seem to appear and words appears that seem to run into other words and at times it’s almost like there’s some kind of wrap around thing happening where, regardless of the plaintext, it joins things and splits things in similar places. Like a jigsaw with square pieces

Probably all nothing as usual but I thought it was interesting in that it might address certain issues (pivots) or at least lead to someone realising something useful.

Here’s the 408 with the above actions applied (split into 2 diagonal grids then rejoined). If anyone spots any pivots pls post. I can’t get my eyes to focus at the moment. One thing I will say is that whilst recompiling these it hits home how much time Zodiac actually took on the 340 to get the thing to read comfortably with regards positioning of each symbol in relation to the symbols around it. He took the time to make sure that each one was centred comfortably so that the columns and lines appear as straight as they could be. This becomes clear when you look at the ones I’ve just done and whilst I’ve tried to balance the symbols some are probably out of line.

Interesting work, trav.

And then there’s the "crop marks" with the diagonally filled box symbols in each corner (another spot of Dave’s).

I didn’t make this connection before, but one of the pivots has a strong resemblance to the "crop marks":

Ahhhh I had seen that but only as a cluster of symbols, completely didn’t register it as part of the first pivot. Only that it was similar to the crop corners. Curious.

It gets curiouser.

That same diagonally filled square is involved with the strongest 3-symbol homophone cycle:

By "strongest", I mean that of all the ways to select 3 different symbols of the cipher text, , and produce the strongest uninterrupted cycle, suggesting homophonic substitution for a common plain text letter.

Side note: The only place the sequence breaks is right in the middle of the cipher, near where the "fold marks" appear.

Interesting. I was wondering if the pluses might have been employed to hide or disrupt similar sequences. Just something else I was thinking about during my latest flurry of cipher poking. I wasn’t thinking of it in those terms but I am now that you’ve posted that lol.

FWIW I checked the 408 after ‘recompiling’ and no pivots were produced.

That same diagonally filled square is involved with the strongest 3-symbol homophone cycle…..

D., that’s the strongest 2-symbol homophone symbol, and the square is just getting in the way. Hee hee hee.

Does straight distribution based around your "strongest homophones" get anywhere near a sensible solve of the 340 btw?
If that’s the strongest homophone, is it "E", and is the "next weakest" then a "T" and so on? Or variations thereof?
No of course not. Don’t mind me, I haven’t had a coffee yet.