I would love to hear doranchak’s thought’s on this as he is our resident expert on all things Cipher related. Are we simply finding pattern’s where their aren’t any ?
I would love to hear doranchak’s thought’s on this as he is our resident expert on all things Cipher related. Are we simply finding pattern’s where their aren’t any ?
I believe they are just random occurrences, but it’s hard to know for sure without running a test.
Even without considering variations in symbols (flipped/mirrored), there are self-similar matches in Z340 that I’m pretty sure are purely random phenomena. Example:
I would love to hear doranchak’s thought’s on this as he is our resident expert on all things Cipher related. Are we simply finding pattern’s where their aren’t any ?
I believe they are just random occurrences, but it’s hard to know for sure without running a test.
Even without considering variations in symbols (flipped/mirrored), there are self-similar matches in Z340 that I’m pretty sure are purely random phenomena. Example:
Thanks for you opinion Dave, Such is the mystery of the Zodiac. I really don’t envy you Cipher guy’s trying to make sense of it all.
Also noticed many of the > and < symbols form a smooth curve:
Probably just imagining things at this point.
Thank you for this as it is very interesting.
Edit: Will need to rework my edit
Thanks for you opinion Dave, Such is the mystery of the Zodiac. I really don’t envy you Cipher guy’s trying to make sense of it all.
It is like Sisyphus rolling a boulder uphill for all eternity. 
Nice observations Cragle.
There is a thread on symmetry in the 340: viewtopic.php?f=81&t=4342&hilit=symmetry
you guys prob been over this before , but speaking of the <V>^ characters, you’ve got the center 4. each one is 4 symbols in from the edge IF you throw out the "-" symbols, which are often seen as potential fold lines (etc) anyway. all 4 are on the pure + axis, 2 matching pairs.
.
Just came across this while reading some older threads
particularly in this thread and this other thread
hi jarlve.. that`s hard for me to follow without visuals
so if by chance row 14 is filler how do we get row 14 to be the last line of the code or what is the encryption to do that?
cheersI am still trying to find out exactly what is wrong with row 14.
Some options to ponder:
– The row is random filler, such that it needs to be removed.
– Homophones were not cycled in this row.
– A large amount of polyphones in this row.It is a good idea that the row might be out of order, as you suggest it may be the last line in some way.
The scorpion cipher has the 14th line scratched out which is the line that when removed changes the 340 cycle counts so much.read more here The line even has 2 missing from the 12 in the rest of the rows and it just so happens to land on a pivot and the BOO if aligned on the 340. Could this "sloppiness/laziness" actually be a deliberate clue?
Some people instantly wrote off this scorpion letter and ciphers, but maybe it really was zodiac?
Could this be a clue at a step needed to solve the z340?
Would Zodiac leave a trail of breadcrumbs to the old unsolved ciphers while using a new persona and sending new ciphers?
Are there more hints?
If you look at lines 13 down they are also aligned more to the right, almost as if it is a separate piece.
And what the hell does this arrow pointing between lines 14 and 15 in the letter mean? Start at the end?
While Heriberto Seda was copying Zodiac at this time I don’t think this letter or the ciphers were sent by Heriberto at all.
Maybe Zodiac heard in the news about Heriberto acting like Z and decided to bring out a new persona to deliver some new ciphers and give some hints at the old ones.
There is some pretty familiar Zodiac sounding stuff in the letter.
And the writer mentions disguising the handwriting so I can’t logically rule it out based on that alone.
There was also a picture of an envelope Morf posted that had a reversed string of 7 numbers in the lower left which reminded me of the "by Knife" portion of the Halloween card. (which was arranged 7 letters going down with a backward N) Could that be a hint at the lower left portion of the z340, an area with abnormally low repeating bigrams?
The other scorpion cipher just so happens to be 7 rows tall…
Some thinking about the Z340…
I am coming to terms that the "Z408 like substitution + period 19 variation" hypothesis is not working. I still think that it is possible, but with everything we’ve tried it is starting to seem more unlikely than likely. Though, at least, in my mind, period 19 is not a "dead" hypothesis yet and I want to start considering polyalphabetism at the plain or cipher text level. The amount of repeats that can be found at the period 19 variations is just ridiculous. At the same time I am also in duality about period 19 and it could really be a "coincidence". For example, in the Old Lady Killer case, 3 of the victims owned the same painting, a coincidence which distracted the investigation for years.
In some ways I feel that the Z340 does not make sense, a few examples:
1) Isolog pivots.
2) Hugely unlikely amount of period 19 repeats but no solve in this direction.
3) Cyclic, yet cycles randomized somehow to the point where we cannot identify any cycle with confidence. Yet, less unigram repeats per rows than the Z408 per the same length while having a higher IOC per the same length.
The pivots appear so isolog that they do not seem to fit into any observation and are basically a thing of there own… There is some correlation with encoding randomization tests but there is also correlation with periodicity and these 2 do not go well together.
It is worth noting that the Z408 has 3 horizontal/vertical "unconnected" pivots of which 2 are connected to last row (likely being filler). And all these pivots are connected to either the first or last row of each Z408 part:
Are the pivots in the Z340 telling us something about its regions/parts? Suppose yes, regions are not strictly horizontal as pivots overlap? Are they a sign of filler as seen in the Z408? Suppose yes, why have filler in the middle of the cipher?
Interesting post, Jarlve. A lot to think about.
It is worth noting that the Z408 has 3 horizontal/vertical "unconnected" pivots of which 2 are connected to last row (likely being filler). And all these pivots are connected to either the first or last row of each Z408 part
Those remind me of trav’s discovery: viewtopic.php?p=29495#p29495
I did a brute force search for similar patterns a long time ago but they were on the now defunct forum at zodiackillerfacts.
I dug up an old copy of the post and put it here:
http://zodiackillerciphers.com/Zodiac%2 … tions.html
My impression from those results was that the more direction changes you allow, the more repeating patterns you will find purely by chance. But I’m curious how it breaks down for string length vs number of "turns".
I have been wondering the same, although I wish I could contribute more.
I also find it confusing how certain operations can increase the period 19 repeats.
How can so many strange observations that seem somewhat significant lead to nothing?
A lot to ponder for sure.
Those observations align with what a pseudo-random number generator would produce. The human mind is not very good at simulating randomness, and regularities emerge in the output. This is consistent with the 340 being mostly pseudo-random gibberish, with perhaps a small message hidden in there through other means than encipherment. I still can’t get over "her body" in the first two lines.
the last line in a transposition cipher can end up splattered anywhere or it could be grouped or maybe even pivots. depending on the method used skytale, p19, railfence etc. can someone put up a visual of these showing the last line after transposing in a few different methods.
Jarlve. as per my comment above. this is the 340 from AZdecrypt with the last line converted to X`s.. the next batch is the same 340 to period 17.. as you see all the X moved to the end column. You were playing around with the end column the other day. What i am trying to show is that the time to remove the "last row which could be filler" is after transposition. Actually im not sure if im thinking this through properly.
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By:cM+UZGW()L#zHJ
Spp7^l8*V3pO++RK2
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p8R^FlO-*dCkF>2D(
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(G2Jfj#O+_NYz+@L9
d<M+b+ZR2FBcyA64K
-zlUV+^J+Op7<FBy-
U+R/5tE|DYBpbTMKO
2<clRJ|*5T4M.+&BF
z69Sy#+N|5FBc(;8R
lGFN^f524b.cV4t++
yBX1*:49CE>VUZ5-+
|c.3zBK(Op^.fMqG2
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++)WCzWcPOSHT/()p
|FkdW<7tB_YOB*-Cc
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
HBU3+DGbJB+RXB<H-
E(Zp&(2++p&l1K+TC
R#GO4#JZObBG*(F/c
>OW+k5fRpTFF:Ol(X
p%(+/+j27MzN4pW)X
lD)RpK#F<K6^9^BpX
^WLK8qOBFO9fC.||X
VY#2R%+cB2S5Ef)FX
P.z_^;_yy<y2>MLkX
k<H9F2NA-c#4Vq+dX
|*JMlUY6Ul+bUG+WX
1KS+Ocz4+RN.Z2)<X
Lfpz-X+KRJ|c5RW7X
T)pt*G@-/|5V-cCtX
GB7jdVLz5*F4+TzBX
2y^dC.9lt5Bt|+W_X
d:l|kzdUETc+cLcYX
Nc85FL<V|4(+.1POX
pM*F>|M+DM;y36OBX
++VP2(+^Y.8BzCS*X
@doranchak, I see that you also had the 5-gram discovered. I find it interesting that 2 out of 3 unconnected pivots are linked to the last row in the Z408. I would like to hypothesize that Zodiac liked to do this (reusing as filler, horizontal trigrams vertically or vice versa).
I have been wondering the same, although I wish I could contribute more.
If you haven’t yet, then pick up programming, it is actually a very relaxing and rewarding thing to start with.
I also find it confusing how certain operations can increase the period 19 repeats.
The period 19 repeats on their own are statistically significant, yes. Then, some other simple (geometric) operations increase that count even more and that increase on its own is also statistically significant. That also makes me want to rule out nulls or skips that misalign the period. The whole period 19 thing could be a fluke however, but what the hell.
Those observations align with what a pseudo-random number generator would produce. The human mind is not very good at simulating randomness, and regularities emerge in the output. This is consistent with the 340 being mostly pseudo-random gibberish,
I am fond of a pseudo-random idea. Z340 has very little repeats in rows. Do you think that a human trying to generate randomness could up end doing that by default because of his own misunderstanding of randomness? Or do you think that he may have tried to simulate sequential homophonic substitution? How were frequencies kept in check? Do you fancy making a cipher like this?
the last line in a transposition cipher can end up splattered anywhere or it could be grouped or maybe even pivots. depending on the method used skytale, p19, railfence etc. can someone put up a visual of these showing the last line after transposing in a few different methods.
Something like this perhaps?
