One thing that bothers me is I always see a lot of gibberish in these things. I see a couple phrases that sort of ring true but if they are indeed part of a solution then I would hope to see some kind of sentence take shape around them instead of the random "hunt and peck for words" method that seems to be so popular once we hit a wall. For example, "theo" is not interesting. There is no context, no meaning. It could be "the" followed by another word or part of a larger word or entirely wrong for that matter. Whatever.

This is not to say I don’t appreciate the efforts made by all. It’s such a perplexing problem, one that’s been tackled by some of the brightest minds and they’ve all failed to completely solve it. I admire anyone who continues plugging away at this thing. I’d just encourage folks to keep that broader picture in mind — this thing has to make sense. Making alphabet soup spell a few words is neat and all but ultimately it’s not going to be taken seriously unless it comes together into a (somewhat) coherent message that is clearly from Z.

And let’s not even get into the likelihood that he crafted a puzzle with no solution to gratify his ego and desire for attention.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing further iterations on your process, AK. Is it safe to assume that people have more or less exhausted any sort of numbers game he might have played with phrases he could assume people would be familiar with? (ie, this is the zodiac speaking, the car door, etc) When I see some of the things that have been tried, I can’t help but think that if he intended it to be solved then he would have at least made use of something less obscure than blips on a letter he wrote. Unfortunately, when it comes to murderous psychopaths, it’s a little difficult to suss out what was foremost in their mind.

I contend that THEO is interesting as it happens right before SEE A NAME. Also, if you take the nine letters that surround it, apply a 0-3-6-9 Caesar shift matrix, you get KAC ZYN SKI in a very patterned way.

I think that Graysmith is held in generally low regard by most in the Z cipher community, and thus this proposed partial solution has not got the attention it should as a possible starting point. Obviously it is not in itself a coherent solution – one or more other steps are needed. Only one little problem: Nobody knows for sure what the steps are!

But Graysmith did NOT force the name ALLEN into his proposed solution.

For the parts that don’t make sense, Graysmith then jumped to extreme anagrams and forced word solves.

IMO he did not understand that other steps were needed. In some or all instances IMO those steps include a Caesar shift of 0-3-6-9 and maybe 10, 20, 30.

IMO there is also at least one other step needed, but I have not figured it out.

So we have a solution were certain lines make sense and read in LEFT TO RIGHT ENGLISH CORRECT SPELLING NO ANAGRAMS:

HERCEANB I GIVE THEM HELL TOO

STALLS

While others need a 0-3-6-9 Caesar shift and mild to moderate anagram use to be read:

KACZYN THEO SKI

FUN KILLING HAVE A BALL

Here is an example. Graysmith solved the middle line, and looking at what he had, then tried to force a solution: PILLS GAME etc. If you do a 0-3-6-9 Caesar shift, them with mild to moderate anagrams in a general left to right read you can get I LOVE MY COLLECTIONS SORRY I WONT STOP. In the example below you can see most of the MY COLLECTIONS and SORRY.

B N R U U U O V R C Y R U U B P J
Y K O R R R L S O Z V O R R Y M G
V H L O O O I P L W S L O O V J D
S E I L L L F M I T P I L L S G A
P B F I I I C J F Q M F I I P D X
M Y C F F F Z G C N J C F F M A U
J V Z C C C W D Z K G Z C C J X R

6-6-6-3-0-0-3-6-6-3-3-6-6-6-6-0-0

[However there is a large problem with this, I admit now. I came up with a proposed solution, and it reads well, but unfortunately I cannot fully justify all the steps in the method. Some of the anagrams are too extreme and wide. Its often too arbitrary. The shifts jump with no pattern that I can see. In other words, I got an answer, but I can’t show that all the work is logical. Its like the old math joke: Student: 2745+756438x37CFx3892BG {Miracle} 345+ 6745= X. Professor: I am a little unclear on that middle part…But I do still state that there is an excellent start point here for someone willing to take it]

Ted Kaczynski used vertical and diagonal elements in his codes, to increase difficulty of solution. Some words here appear backwards, vertically or diagonally, correct spelling usually NO ANAGRAMS or a few very mild ones, which could be coincidence or a part of larger message which need other steps:

LIST BOMBS BLAST

GAME

While most of the rest of the solution needs another step or steps which we don’t yet know, but perhaps could be deduced using computer analysis, or correcting parts of the solution that Graysmith or Bullitt/Kite/Obiwan/Wilks got wrong.

Since most of the critics said many names can be produced and the name TJK just appears by chance, I thought the point of the excellent probability study by Aquiman was to determine if the chances were what the critics were saying (100%, 90%, 80%, 51%) or what I was saying (under 10%, perhaps under 5%, maybe under 1%). But now the argument seems to be "Yes it was 5% or 1% or 0.003%, but those numbers are meaningless because I can get LKANE or JACKT out of 13 Caesar shifted letters and many other names like NED BUNKY WILBER."

Yes MANY MANY NAMES CAN BE PRODUCED FROM THESE LETTERS. That was shown two years ago by GLURK. And doranchak and Aqui. But NONE (I think) can be SEEN and READ by the average person. All the other names are hodge podge mixed up, extreme anagrams. Most are nonsense names, not names of real people. Nobody can seriously argue any were placed.

In other words, to a computer Z CAK NY THEO IKS is just one of thousands of possible combinations and thus insignificant. But to a human eye and mind, the name appears in readable English, and out of the thousands and thousands of names that can be produced, it is the only one that has that quality. And it is the only one of a real SF based serial killer and bomber.

Or as even Doranchak admits, it has fewer "edit decisions" to get to the actual name.

What I argue is significant is that we have THEO as is no anagrams and the last name essentially backwards by syllable. If you don’t find that significant then it is one of just many names and has no meaning.

Same thing with the unsolved 18 – either the geographic patterns, few edit decisions and internal math have meaning to you or they don’t.

The results for closely bunched THEODOREJ and KACZYNSKI in Moby Dick were 4 finds out of 1,176, which is 0.003%, or 3/10 of 1%, and Doranchak admits the results would be similar if not lower for the finding of Z CAK NY THEO IKS in Moby Dick as it is found in the 3rd line of the 1986 Graysmith Raw Solution to the Zodiac 340. The fact that it appears right before SEE A NAME is also interesting! "SEE A NAME?"

————————-

Did Zodiac sent in the card above? If so, was he giving a clue that his next code might be a "word puzzle" format, like a seek and find game where words are hidden in a letter matrix horizontially, vertically, backwards and diagonally?

Is there a "word puzzle" message here?

Hmmm…maybe…

But perhaps not quite, still too fragmented and too many anagrams, but I do think this may be the start of something, but if so another element is needed, and I don’t know what it is. I am still looking through the 0,3,6,9/10,20,30 work Doranchak did at my request, finding interesting words like BOSS, GAME, KILL, KOKO, TED, CORDS, HOOD, BERKELEY, but not yet finding coherent "messages".

Zodiac 340 Proposed First Stage Solution Marked Messages, Phrases And Cryptic Word Finds

Is It A Word Puzzle Seek And Find? What Other Steps Are Needed To Get The Complete Solution?

These are from the FBI Zodiac file, the FBI Crypto Unit attempt to decode the Zodiac 340 Code and the Zodiac 12/7/69 Fairfield Code.

You can see that they DID think some anagram use was possible if not probable and did try various anagram approaches.

I got this in 2009/2010 from the FBI website – now it appears it is gone! If anyone can find it let me know. IIRC there was not much more analysis than this, but there was a little bit more. I think doranchak might have it or it may be in the material uncovered by Morf. But it was really not all that impressive. I don’t think they made as much effort on this as we might have thought. I think the FBI now has done more.

I’d like to comment here. Two quotes from the posts above:

One thing that bothers me is I always see a lot of gibberish in these things. I see a couple phrases that sort of ring true but if they are indeed part of a solution then I would hope to see some kind of sentence take shape around them instead of the random "hunt and peck for words" method that seems to be so popular once we hit a wall. For example, "theo" is not interesting. There is no context, no meaning. It could be "the" followed by another word or part of a larger word or entirely wrong for that matter. Whatever.

I contend that THEO is interesting as it happens right before SEE A NAME.

AK-

I feel that the point that ‘regret’ has made above is quite valid, and your response is fairly lacking. Cipher solutions do not just "happen." People create them.
Many of us do not believe that the "Graysmith Solution" has any validity to it whatsoever. It is pretty much exactly what he says it is, gibberish with a few phrases that make sense. I can insert "SEE A NAME" into the 340 cipher in the same place, and easily make it say "AK WILKS CAN SEE A NAME THEO!!" Let me post that as an image:

Now, does AK WILKS become interesting or compelling because it "happens" right before SEE A NAME? That’s a rhetorical question. I already know how you will respond. You placed it there!!

Of course I did. Just in the same way that Graysmith placed all of the letters in his contrived solution, and just as hundreds of others have placed them in their own contrived solutions. And the consensus has always been that they are all wrong. All of them. There is no logical reason or evidence to believe that the Graysmith solution is any more correct than any of the hundreds of other attempts.

I know that it "fits" your POI. But that’s a selective bias, isn’t it.

You can go ahead and respond to this in your usual manner with another two or three "mile-long" posts full of images re-iterating what you have already said, and run this post away, or maybe, just once, you can make a short reply. I’d appreciate the latter.

-glurk

One must consider the possibility the Zodiac killer was high on LSD when he constructed the 340.
Please show your solutions to the My Name is cipher using this solution by Graysmith/Obiwan, not the Hardens.
I feel this solution is valid. Why does everyone think Zodiac wouldn’t anagram, because they don’t like it?
I believe the 408 shows anagramming, No? It’s just one more step in finding the solution. By the way, every cipher
must begin with a key. What is the key here?

One must consider the possibility the Zodiac killer was high on LSD when he constructed the 340.
Please show your solutions to the My Name is cipher using this solution by Graysmith/Obiwan, not the Hardens.
I feel this solution is valid. Why does everyone think Zodiac wouldn’t anagram, because they don’t like it?
I believe the 408 shows anagramming, No? It’s just one more step in finding the solution. By the way, every cipher
must begin with a key. What is the key here?

In his solved cipher, he didn’t anagram. Why do we think he would suddenly do so in this cipher? If people are now adding anagrams to the solution,seems like the possibilities are endless

It’s not a matter of "liking" or "not liking" anagrams. The fact is, once you introduce them as a possibility, it is nearly impossible to prove that an anagrammed solution is true. It’s because there are so many possible anagrams.

For example, consider the letters "opst". You can turn them into 5 different words: post, pots, spot, stop, tops

If I gave you a cipher that decoded to "opst", which word would you pick?

Another example: The letters "aegilnrt" can be unscrambled to : alerting, altering, integral, relating, and triangle.

If the 340-character cipher’s solution contains, say, 70 different words, and they can each be anagrammed to 3 different words, that means there are 2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 different ways to pick the words. How do you know which one is correct? You need direct evidence (such as a letter that says "yes, I did it that way.") Otherwise, the chance of you accidentally picking the right one is practically zero.

There is a great article called "The AEGINRST Transposal", which goes through 78 different anagrams of the letters "AEGINRST", and includes justifications and definitions for each one. Here is a sample:

The article also mentions that all 24 combinations of the letters "AEST" are valid words, ranging from obscure to common.

You can download the articles here:

http://zodiackillerciphers.com/images/The_Aeginrst_Transposal-_Part_1.pdf
http://zodiackillerciphers.com/images/The_Aeginrst_Transposal-_Part_2.pdf

I don’t dislike anagrams. They are actually quite fun. But when people claim they have a solution, and it uses anagrams, then they need to provide solid evidence on why their anagram is better than the nearly limitless possibilities.

It will be horrible, when broken the 340, it contains a cryptic message or as the idiot like 408, as:
"Hello my dear, you finally managed to decipher me, I will not give my name’s ok, hugs"
     Turing brighten someone!

One must consider the possibility the Zodiac killer was high on LSD when he constructed the 340.
Please show your solutions to the My Name is cipher using this solution by Graysmith/Obiwan, not the Hardens.
I feel this solution is valid. Why does everyone think Zodiac wouldn’t anagram, because they don’t like it?
I believe the 408 shows anagramming, No? It’s just one more step in finding the solution. By the way, every cipher
must begin with a key. What is the key here?

No as Morf points out, the 408 does not contain any anagrams. [It did have misspellings]. However, that was solved fairly quickly, and there is no doubt that Zodiac made the 340 harder and more difficult to solve. One way to make it more difficult to solve might have been the use of tight mild anagrams. Certainly it seems the FBI Code Unit thought so, as they engage in anagrams to try to solve the cipher.

But I actually agree with Doranchak and Glurk, once you get into wide anagrams, extreme or even moderate anagrams, you open up so many hundreds and thousands of possible outcomes, then to millions of such different outcomes, it would be impossible to come up with a solution universally acknowledged as correct like the 408. It seems doubtful Z would do this, IF he wanted the code solved.

Where I disagree with D & G is that I think it is possible that Z might have used some tight mild anagrams. Like for example, LASTB as an anagram for BLAST. By moving the B from the end to the start, or as D would say "one edit decision", you get a word that Zodiac used. Why would Z use some tight mild anagrams? Perhaps to increase difficulty of solution, make the challenge harder and protect himself from legal jeopardy. If he put his name or clues to his identity in the 340, by using some tight mild anagrams (and/or Caesar shifts) he would protect himself from prosecution even if the code was solved, because the use of even mild tight anagrams would make any solution not the ONLY possible solution, and thus very unlikely that it could ever be used as evidence in court.

But I can’t do what you request because IMO it is not logical. With such a very short 13 symbol code as in the My Name Is, I think Zodiac would not have created a new key because it would be virtually impossible to solve. Nor do I think he would mostly use an as yet undiscovered key as in the then unsolved 340. IMO he would have mostly used the Harden Key, the exception being for symbols like the circled "8" ‘s which do not appear in the 408 or the 340. I don’t think you could solve the MNI by just using the Raw Graysmith 340 as a key, as there are not enough shared symbols.

I do think the MNI is a clue to the 340, as I have shown elsewhere.

Yes that is the question, what is the key? What is going on here? We don’t know yet.

GLURK: Now, does AK WILKS become interesting or compelling because it "happens" right before SEE A NAME? That’s a rhetorical question. I already know how you will respond. You placed it there!!

Of course I did. Just in the same way that Graysmith placed all of the letters in his contrived solution, and just as hundreds of others have placed them in their own contrived solutions. And the consensus has always been that they are all wrong. All of them. There is no logical reason or evidence to believe that the Graysmith solution is any more correct than any of the hundreds of other attempts.

I know that it "fits" your POI. But that’s a selective bias, isn’t it.

You can go ahead and respond to this in your usual manner with another two or three "mile-long" posts full of images re-iterating what you have already said, and run this post away, or maybe, just once, you can make a short reply. I’d appreciate the latter.

AK WILKS: A short reply? OK, "Taco Cat spelled backwards spells Taco Cat! I rest my case. Winning!"

Is that short enough?

You say "the same way that Graysmith placed all of the letters in his contrived solution". Well I disagree. We know that in 1978 and 1986 Robert Graysmith was focused on Arthur Leigh (Lee) Allen as a suspect. Yet in RG’s proposed solution none of those names appear. He appears to have made an honest effort to solve the code, and yes he is an amateur, but so were Don and Bettye Harden. I doubt there was a person anywhere, in the FBI, police, academia or elsewhere, who spent more time and effort in the 1976 to 1986 time period, when the case was mostly forgotten outside of SF, trying to solve the 340.

What is amazing is that many of the words he came up with do apply to a POI, but it was not his POI, it is mine. Only mine was unknown in 1978 and 1986. Keep in mind that nobody knew who Ted Kaczynski was back then. And keep in mind that Ted only signed his letters with three names other than his own: FC, Apias Tuberosa and HERCULES. So do we just say it is pure coincidence that in his first solution of the 340 that RG sent to the FBI in 1978, he has the words HERC, I GIVE THEM HELL TOOO TED, THEO SEE A NAME, and SOME MAIL KT. If a detective thought the solution might be accurate even partially, he might speculate that he should keep an eye open for any serial killers and/or bombers named Ted or Theodore, with the initials K.T. or T.K. who might have used a nickname including HERC. Glurk if you or anyone else want to see this 1978 solution with 4 possible Unabomber clues, let me know and I will post it. I am trying to keep this somewhat short as requested, not posting any of the actual 340 solutions as I have already done so above , as you kindly noted.

Also there are seperate elements here. I discuss anagrams above, and I largely agree (now) with you and Doranchak that wide extreme or even moderate anagrams simply create far too many possible solutions and set you off on an impossible task. I think Zodiac likely would not have used them. But other than a very few tight mild one or two edit decision instances like LASTB as an anagram for BLAST, I do NOT suggest the use of anagrams in the Raw Graysmith.

But the other element is that I think Zodiac may have used a word puzzle theme in the 340, as the "concerned citizen" (who may have been Zodiac) seemed to hint at. [A later serial killer, BTK, did send in a word puzzle]. This would include the use of not just horizontal words and phrases, but vertical, diagonal and backwards. The study by Prof. Knight seems to suggest this is possible as well. Ted Kaczynski used vertical and diagonal elements in his codes, to increase difficulty of solution. Some words here appear backwards, vertically or diagonally, correct spelling NO ANAGRAMS, which could be coincidence or a part of larger message which need other steps:

Horizontal:

HERCEAN B IGIVE THEM HELL TOO

STALLS

Diagonal:

LIST BOMBS

Vertical:

DUEL SIR BARS LEASH LOSE TAKE SEAT TIES

Backwards:

GAME

SO I SLASH

The study by QuickTrader (and partially backed up by additional research by AK, Glurk and Doranchak) IMO largely confirms what Graysmith, Kite and I have long said, that the + is very likely an L.

Once you solve the + as L, and the 9 as E, and/or a few others, and go from there into the most logical possible word solves, you end up with something very much like the Raw Graysmith. Yes, as Doranchak one pointed out, you could solve the 4th line _EE___A__ as GREEK NAVY or a few others. But isn’t SEE A NAME more likely as coming from Zodiac, given the MY NAME IS code that he sent later, other teasing references to his name and the 8th line solve of THESE FOOLSHALL SEE?

And as Doranchak noted at http://www.zodiackillerciphers.com , a recent study by code expert Professor Knight at USC showed that unlike the 408 which shows a strong tendency towards traditional left to right bigrams, the 340 shows no particular bias, in fact there are more bigrams in a north east diagonal read.

This could mean encoded words appear left to right, diagonally and vertically, as does happen in the Raw Graysmith as determined by Ed/Kite/Wilks. Yes there are many, many solutions, and you can say almost anything in the first 5 lines, as I showed in my "Internet Solution/Time Traveler" post,see viewtopic.php?f=81&t=1343 , but IMO no other proposed solution has anywhere near the vertical, diagonal and backwards words as the Raw Graysmith, and none of these were "placed" there by Graysmith, as he never noted them and to this day I dont think he even knows they exist. Either they happen by chance, or the code maker created them.

This could mean encoded words appear left to right, diagonally and vertically, as does happen in the Raw Graysmith as determined by Ed/Kite/Wilks. Yes there are many, many solutions, and you can say almost anything in the first 5 lines, as I showed in my "Internet Solution/Time Traveler" post,see viewtopic.php?f=81&t=1343 , but IMO no other proposed solution has anywhere near the vertical, diagonal and backwards words as the Raw Graysmith, and none of these were "placed" there by Graysmith, as he never noted them and to this day I dont think he even knows they exist. Either they happen by chance, or the code maker created them.

I’ve demonstrated this before, but those words are arising by chance. Even a random grid of letters will produce many short words in various directions, crossword style.

Here’s your own quote, from above, arranged in a 340 grid:

THISCOULDMEANENCO
DEDWORDSAPPEARLEF
TTORIGHTDIAGONALL
YANDVERTICALLYASD
OESHAPPENINTHERAW
GRAYSMITHASDETERM
INEDBYEDKITEWILKS
YESTHEREAREMANYMA
NYSOLUTIONSANDYOU
CANSAYALMOSTANYTH
INGINTHEFIRSTLINE
SASISHOWEDINMYINT
ERNETSOLUTIONTIME
TRAVELERPOSTBUTIM
ONOOTHERPROPOSEDS
OLUTIONHASANYWHER
ENEARTHEVERTICALD
IAGONALANDBACKWAR
DSWORDSASTHERAWGR
AYSMITHANDNONEOFT

Here’s a sample of the numerous words that appear, simply by chance!

point, row 15, column 9
tamed, row 10, column 12
sleet, row 10, column 4
namer, row 8, column 14
gleek, row 3, column 12
name, row 8, column 14
nine, row 10, column 14
lost, row 13, column 8
alan, row 18, column 8
vast, row 17, column 9
rare, row 17, column 11
loan, row 4, column 13
bear, row 18, column 11
ears, row 17, column 8
sets, row 9, column 11
sont, row 20, column 3
harm, row 17, column 7
rely, row 5, column 15
aunt, row 17, column 4
rows, row 19, column 5
plot, row 14, column 9
tons, row 14, column 12
sean, row 12, column 5
seas, row 8, column 3
tore, row 16, column 4
dame, row 4, column 4
idle, row 20, column 5
pier, row 5, column 7
lied, row 10, column 8
tess, row 7, column 11
gale, row 19, column 16
rite, row 17, column 5
lear, row 18, column 7
nasa, row 16, column 12
tame, row 10, column 12
mats, row 8, column 12
rife, row 11, column 11
esta, row 13, column 4
riis, row 11, column 11
revd, row 4, column 7
glee, row 3, column 12
ware, row 19, column 15
soar, row 14, column 11
vole, row 14, column 4
oars, row 15, column 4
dela, row 15, column 16
eels, row 7, column 7
ayen, row 10, column 2
dons, row 2, column 3
keel, row 7, column 16
emit, row 13, column 17
prat, row 14, column 9
leek, row 4, column 13
ewan, row 6, column 13
dnas, row 9, column 14
caen, row 4, column 10 (There’s Herb Caen again!)
dans, row 7, column 8
tarp, row 17, column 12

This means that any proposed solution to the 340 will also have numerous short words forming by chance diagonally, vertically, backwards, etc. Of all the possible plaintexts for the 340, a great many of them will contain key words that interest you. But you can’t just ignore all the ones that don’t, because you have to prove that the interesting words are there by design, and all the uninteresting ones aren’t.

Your aunt and dame is not as relevant as my list bombs which lead into each other.

But you make a valid point. Even if I am right I can’t prove it, because any grid generates random words. So either I am wrong and LIST BOMBS HE SET LAST SO I SLASH are random or if set by Z impossible to distinguish from random.

By your work the patterned KAC ZYN SKI around THEO would only happen by chance 0.003% of the time but you don’t find that significant, nor do most other codebreakers, because they are looking for odds in the billions like the 408, but the 340 is something different.

Here’s another example. Glurk posted this zkdecrypto result after locking in some letters:

Here are many words that appear in there, in normal order: morning, priest, sonora, tender, parens, seems, shant, shone, flush, at the, asher, honed, of the, that’d, oldie, stash, tiler, arsed, ender, with, that, they, them, more, days, soon, hair, died, seem, gets, hall, tend, hers, hero, oral, halt, wash, thou, arse, hood, dist, loft, nora, bout, lush, tile, edie, guna, seth, enid, esta, dine, hath, theo, http, outs, lard, sats, flan, dans, bess, agni (Theo appears!)

And here are many other words that appear vertically, diagonally, backwards, etc: alone, shone, riots, salon, loner, sloan, honed, stash, hones, tiler, allie, studd, hirth, days, head, goes, east, ones, loan, rent, hero, ease, halt, dean, ties, lone, seas, arch, riot, tate, lens, sita, loft, tina, tile, edie, lass, guna, mats, ella, enid, stud, oslo, soot, heed, rett, sate, lute, lard, tans, sats, lash, flan, lara, bess, ulna, hone, dolt, erie

Your aunt and dame is not as relevant as my list bombs which lead into each other.

I could make the case that "aunt" and "dame" are related words. And, I could make similar arguments for words that appear in other grids. For example, I could create a list of words related to Dr. Seuss, and then modify zkdecrypto to search for plaintexts that have many Dr. Seuss words appearing close to each other. If you started with 10 Seuss-related words, it would take longer to find a grid with 3 Seuss words clustered together. But if you started with 100 Seuss-related words, the search would be much quicker.

Surely in glurk’s grid above, someone could find three words that "lead into each other", and construct a narrative that explains them. But this would not be proof that the words were placed there by design.

I always appreciate you (doranchak) and glurk and others looking at my ideas and giving constructive criticism. Because certainly I can and do learn from it, and as a result of it, I have dropped bad ideas in the past. Like extreme wide anagrams.

But debunking IMO only gets us so far. It can maybe show a wrong path, but can it show a right path? Is there a point in having a cipher section for new ideas? Don’t at some point you have to TRY something? Take a risk of being wrong instead of just showing someone else is wrong?

Where do we start to try something?

Pretend there is no Graysmith.

Start with a blank slate. Using parts of the Harden Key, ETA frequency analysis and some word solve "guesses".

Can we provisionally solve one symbol, the symbol that occurs most frequently in the 340? That is the infamous " + ".

Starting with a blank slate, I think QT”s study, backed up by my analysis, and even work from doranchak and glurk, shows that the most likely candidate (or at least a very good candidate) for + is L.

So lets TRY the + as L. Add to that S99 as SEE. Solve for TH. I think the 3rd line KAC ZYN THEO SKI is interesting since it only happens by chance 0.003% of the time, so I include, others may not. If you proceed from there with further frequency analysis and possible word solve guesspothesis, you will usually end up with something looking at least in part like the Raw Graysmith.

This is what I think is worth TRYING as a starting point, to see if it gets us anywhere. It may or may not.

I think some of the recent work by QT, with some ideas and research by me (AK), doranchak, glurk and others, was some of the best collaborative and critical work done here, as it may have actually led us to perhaps solving one symbol of the code. Which is more than has happened in 40 years, and once again, a possible starting point.

I think Quicktrader’s original study was likely correct and add to it the fact that Zodiac had a particular personal vocabulary, which used "L" and "LL" much more than the average person.

Glurk’s study shows that TT, LL, SS and EE are the most used in English writing, with LL being the second most used.

So off the bat we have reason to consider ++ as LL.

In the first Zodiac Code he used "S" 24 times. Only once was there a "SS", and that happened in the phrase "it iS So much fun". Zodiac neved used a word that has "SS" in it, not once. Compare that to the number of words he used in the first code that had "LL" – SEVEN different words! And they are words we might think it is likely he also used in the 340 code. They were:

Zodiac also used these words with a single "L". – like, people, wild, girl, slaves, slow, animal, afterlife.

By my rough quick count, the letter "L" appears 33 times in the 408 code. About 8.1% of the letters are "L", which is about double normal usage, as it happens that many words Z liked to use have either L or LL in them. So if Z used "L" 8.1% of the time in the 408, it seems to me that 9.7% use in the 340 code is within normal deviation, really only two more uses of a word like kill, killing, collecting, etc., would do it. And if we strike the untranslated last 18, leaving us 390 translated letters, the 33 uses of "L" amount to 8.5%, which is even closer to my proposed 9.7%. in the 340 code.

GLURK: I’ve done a small bit of work on this, and I’m going to have to say that as far as Zodiac’s use of the doubled letter "L," he did in fact use it a lot.
More than would be expected in normal writing. Even in words that, properly spelled, would not have the letter doubled.

I did not do exact word counts, sorry, but in a quick study I’ve found:

ALL, ALLREADY
AWFULLY
BILLIARD
BILLOWY
BULLET
BULLSHIT
CALLED
CELLING
COLLECT, COLLECTING
CONTINUALLY
FILLING
FULL
HELL
HILL, HILLS
HOLLY
KILL, KILLED, KILLER, KILLING
PULLED
REALLY
ROLLED
SHALL
SMALL
SQUEALLING
TELL, TELLING
THRILLING
TITWILLO
UNTILL
VALLEJO
WACHAMACALLIT
WALL
WELL
WILL

This should be all of them, I think, unless I missed something… I probably did miss something…
I don’t, however, believe that the 340 is simply a homophonic cipher like the 408. But I also don’t have any doubt at all that Zodiac often used "LL" in his writings. He clearly used it more than would be expected.

DORANCHAK: Here are some others:

ALLEY (confession letter)
ALLEYS (confession letter)
ALLWAYS (1971-03-13-times)
BALL (confession letter)
BELLI (1969-12-20-melvin-envelope)
CALL (confession letter, 1969-11-09-chronicle, 1970-07-26-chronicle)
CELL (1970-07-26-chronicle)
FALL (1970-06-26-chronicle-cipher)
FELLOWS (1970-07-26-chronicle)
FOLLOWED (confession letter)
UNWILLING (desktop poem)
SPELL (1974-02-14-sla)
SPILLING (desktop poem)
WILLING (confession letter)
WILLINGLY (confession letter)
YOULL (1970-10-05)

AK-

Sometimes I wonder if you are paying attention, or even read what others have written. Quoting you from just above:

Pretend there is no Graysmith.
Start with a blank slate. Using parts of the Harden Key, ETA frequency analysis and some word solve "guesses".
Starting with a blank slate, I think QT”s study, backed up by my analysis, and even work from doranchak and glurk, shows that the most likely candidate (or at least a very good candidate) for + is L.
So lets TRY the + as L. Add to that S99 as SEE. Solve for TH. If you proceed from there with further frequency analysis and possible word solve guesspothesis, you will usually end up with something looking at least in part like the Raw Graysmith.

Don’t you see the image that doranchak just posted? The one that HAS the + symbol as "L" – The one that HAS the S99 as "SEE"
You asked me to lock those letters into the ZKD program, and see what it would come up with. I did. That is what that image is.
The same one that doranchak showed contained many words forwards, backward, diagonally, and even "THEO"

I DID try what you asked. You were just looking at it.

-glurk