and the old 4 of (9+) @ period 19

and the old 4 of (9+) @ period 19

Sort of a tangent, but i’ve always wondered what happens if u collapse mirrored letters to a single letter, and alternate symbols to single symbols, then try to solve.

One reason I’ve considered this is because otherwise I think if it were a homophonic substitution designed to appear random, we would actually see more clusters of forward and backward letters right next to each other, and alternate symbols right next to each other if they represented different plaintext letters. Instead they seem to stay away from each other…

The fact that they only cluster occasionally in such a way seems almost more like natural english language patterns…

Also seems like a simple shift from the 408 for z to make mentally – rather than start playing 4D chess which I think this cipher is not. Always thought it was just clouded by a simple move (or hopelessly scrambled due to operator error)

This is my impression of the horizontal mirroring in the 340 along with vertical mirroring in the centre line . It is far from perfect symmetry, but I find it compelling because such patterning seems non-existent in the 408. I think Zodiac wanted to create something that appeared valid but also wanted to include nagging hints that it was not.

I also think it is possible that Zodiac was trying to evoke the idea of crosshairs.

Dunno?

‘Fk’ certainly has its place in the annuls of ‘things’.

viewtopic.php?f=72&t=58

"I’m crackproof"? That is pretty striking.

Near the end of line 2, K and backwards F appear. Near the beginning of line 19, F and backwards K appear, perfectly mirroring the symbols on line 2. There is an additional symmetry in their placement as corners of the inner box. Significant or no?

From my reading, I am aware that some have cast doubt on the ’13-hole’ card being an authentic production of the Zodiac. However, accepting for argument’s sake that it is, then there would appear to be some importance in the phrase pasted there as:

"Fk I’m crackproof."

A number of things stand out for me about the use of "Fk" here. Firstly, if interpreted naively (in my view) as a contraction of an expletive, then this would appear something out of character. And why not just go for it in any case, if that’s what is intended? Secondly, however, the whole thing appears suspect. In the context of the first statement about "the cops closeing in on me," it would appear that the intention of the "Fk I’m crackproof" might be to suggest "but they’ll never get me." But, to me, "crackproof" doesn’t work in this sense. I would argue, then, that the phrase is intended to apply not to himself, Zodiac, but to his cipher (Z340). And this (again, in my view) would appear to strongly indicate that his introduction of "Fk" here has relevance, specifically, to this cipher.

It’s a long-shot thought, but doranchak’s points about the symmetry of the the two ‘FK’s and their "placement as corners of the inner box" raised again, for me, the idea that perhaps not all of the symbols of the Z340 contain meaning, but only sections of it. I hadn’t considered it before, but now I’m wondering whether it’s possible that the "Fk" reference on the 13-hole card is intended to apply specifically to what doranchack has highlighted as his "inner box"; that this is "crackproof," simply because it contains no meaningful code. Essentially, I’m wondering could it be that we are being given the hint that it is just the single line of symbols around the edges of the cipher text that we should be focussing on as containing decipherable text?

I am, I must admit, not at all sold on the idea myself, but I am aware that I have for some while felt there is a connection to be made between the location and orientation of this particular block of text on the 13-hole card and the similarly-located and similarly-oriented text on the ‘Pines’ postcard, which reads:

"around in the snow"

Although it would be necessary to suppose that the specific reference to "in the snow" were just a deflection, I had supposed that the word "around" had significance in relation to the Z340 cipher – perhaps suggesting that some or other block of cipher text should be turned around or inverted (reversed). Now, I’m just (very) slightly wondering whether the reference might be suggesting (in conjunction with the earlier "Fk" hint) that we focus on what is "around" the Z340 cipher, and ignore the rest?

I’m wondering if some of these patterns could be explained by a transposition scheme that doesn’t use all the spaces in the matrix. If, for example, only 70% of the matrix is used, that allows 30% where Z could fill in any symbols he wanted. So maybe he decided to fill them up with some patterns.

I’m wondering if some of these patterns could be explained by a transposition scheme that doesn’t use all the spaces in the matrix. If, for example, only 70% of the matrix is used, that allows 30% where Z could fill in any symbols he wanted. So maybe he decided to fill them up with some patterns.

I have had the same idea and I consider it to be a good hypothesis. It does not even have to be transposition.

Z doesn’t even need to have decided to fill the blanks with a pattern. Humans can easily produce patterns when trying to behave randomly.

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There are four BY in the 340.

Start of line 3 is BY (NW quadrant)

Start of line 15 if YB (SW quadrant)

Line 10, position 15 is BY (NE quadrant)

Line 11, position 10 is YB (SE quadrant)

What are the odds? And I can’t get over the fact that the sequence that includes YB on line 11, which is very near the center of the cipher, is EIDYB (die by).

TheMist said "There are four BY in the 340." …

Note also the incidence of near-by ‘B’ & ‘reverse C’ (SW quadrant having the ‘B’ shared).
(shrug) not sure if this means anything, or nothing at all.

Hi, I’ve put together an illustration of some of the repeated symbol clusters that seem to create an impression of symmetry. Some of these patterns could appear coincidentally but nothing like this (as far as I can discern) emerges from the 408 and considering how elusive a homophonic solution to the 340 seems to be I find this to be compelling evidence that this "cipher" would resist transpositional solutions as well.