I am not a cryptographer myself, so can only look on as a (very) interested bystander at all the impressive work that is still going on to try and prove to the author he is wrong in claiming himself to be "crackproof."
My question, "where are we at?" is, I suppose, a very specific one. As far as I can tell, whilst there is much encouragement from your research, am I right in thinking that one of the questions that still has to be answered is "is there actually a decipherable code here at all?"
Some of the research so far certainly suggests that there’s enough indication that the task of seeking to decode it as a cipher of some form remains a valid one. But how would you assess the question "Is this decipherable code?" from a probability point of view, at this point in time? (Objectively, I suppose I’m asking.)
Further to this – and, again, I don’t have any experience in the field myself – is it actually possible that a categorical answer to the question "cipher or nonsense" is attainable from the research or, for however long it remains uncracked, will it always be a probability argument.
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
I have come to the conclusion the 340 cipher cannot be decoded because it doesn’t hold a conventional message like the 408. Just like your assertion that Zodiac told us he wasn’t responsible for CJB, he actually wrote "sorry no cipher" in X-form on the Halloween card envelope. The fact this mirrors the paradice and slaves formation on the Halloween card, which mirrors the 340 cipher, should tell us what he was referring to when he wrote "sorry no cipher". Clearly he wasn’t telling us there was no cipher in the Halloween card, because that was patently obvious. The Halloween card was the only communication he constructed with such a deliberate configuration. Either we believe he created this configuration out of thin air for absolutely no reason, or it was designed for a purpose. Bearing in mind paradice and slaves perfectly bisects the 340 cipher horizontally and vertically, the word by can be found in all four quadrants written horizontally, and sorry no cipher mimics paradice and slaves, is a coincidence I find difficult to ignore. I applaud the search for a coherent message in the 340 cipher, but I believe Zodiac gave us the answer 49 years ago.
https://www.zodiacciphers.com/
“I simply cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument.” Edward R. Murrow.
I have come to the conclusion the 340 cipher cannot be decoded because it doesn’t hold a conventional message like the 408.
Interesting, how did you come to such conclusion?
Clearly he wasn’t telling us there was no cipher in the Halloween card, because that was patently obvious.
Why not, am I missing something ‘patently obvious’ here? The "sorry no cipher" could have been related to the Halloween card only, too, couldn’t it?
viewtopic.php?f=81&t=907&p=71961#p71961
QT
*ZODIACHRONOLOGY*
Well, maybe patently obvious was an over confidence on my part, but I came to the conclusion because of the above reasons.
Sorry no cipher was related to the Halloween card by the cross formation, and by extension the 340. I cannot prove anything, but if he was directly referring to the Halloween card only, just write "sorry no cipher" once. There appears purpose in the design. Unless of course, paradice and slaves in the 340 can be written off as another coincidence.
https://www.zodiacciphers.com/
“I simply cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument.” Edward R. Murrow.
Well, maybe patently obvious was an over confidence on my part, but I came to the conclusion because of the above reasons.
Sorry no cipher was related to the Halloween card by the cross formation, and by extension the 340. I cannot prove anything, but if he was directly referring to the Halloween card only, just write "sorry no cipher" once. There appears purpose in the design. Unless of course, paradice and slaves in the 340 can be written off as another coincidence.
No worry…in Austria, we have governmental crisis, too 
QT
*ZODIACHRONOLOGY*
There are patterns in Z340 — discussed elsewhere on this site — which imply pretty strongly that a message was encoded (and that the encoding process was performed horizontally).
It is possible, though, that the basic plaintext that was encoded was gibberish to begin with. Or that Z was very knowledgeable about ciphers and knew how to fake these patterns.
I believe these possibilities to be unlikely, but I could certainly be wrong about that. However, there is another possibility that seems very plausible — that Z implemented a fairly complicated system of enciphering his message, and made a sufficient number of careless mistakes to render the the text undecipherable.
I think this is the best answer to "where are we at"?
There are patterns in Z340 — discussed elsewhere on this site — which imply pretty strongly that a message was encoded (and that the encoding process was performed horizontally).
It is possible, though, that the basic plaintext that was encoded was gibberish to begin with. Or that Z was very knowledgeable about ciphers and knew how to fake these patterns.
I believe these possibilities to be unlikely, but I could certainly be wrong about that. However, there is another possibility that seems very plausible — that Z implemented a fairly complicated system of enciphering his message, and made a sufficient number of careless mistakes to render the the text undecipherable.
Thanks for that, DMW. That’s helpful.
As to your last possibility, I seem to recall reading or hearing elsewhere that this particular mess-up has occurred before in other cases, where some clever felon, or whatever, had overstepped himself trying to put together some coded message and just ended up flunking it, so it was never actually ‘received’ (as in the message, that is).
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
I think this is the best answer to "where are we at"?
That’s nice, anderson. Thanks for this.
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
Well, maybe patently obvious was an over confidence on my part, but I came to the conclusion because of the above reasons.
Sorry no cipher was related to the Halloween card by the cross formation, and by extension the 340. I cannot prove anything, but if he was directly referring to the Halloween card only, just write "sorry no cipher" once. There appears purpose in the design. Unless of course, paradice and slaves in the 340 can be written off as another coincidence.
I have always taken it a different way. The crosses Paradice / Slaves is a clue the he was referring to the cipher. Also the by appears in each quadrant. Could he have been giving us a word that appears in each quadrant to try to help us along I.e. Gun, Fire, Knife & Rope. Also could the direction of the writing clue us in on the direction of the writing, could it be treated as 4 separate parts with 3 being horizontal and one being vertical. But at the end of the it could be anything.
I have always taken it a different way. The crosses Paradice / Slaves is a clue the he was referring to the cipher. Also the by appears in each quadrant. Could he have been giving us a word that appears in each quadrant to try to help us along I.e. Gun, Fire, Knife & Rope. Also could the direction of the writing clue us in on the direction of the writing, could it be treated as 4 separate parts with 3 being horizontal and one being vertical. But at the end of the it could be anything.
Have you tried out any of these ideas?
I have always taken it a different way. The crosses Paradice / Slaves is a clue the he was referring to the cipher. Also the by appears in each quadrant. Could he have been giving us a word that appears in each quadrant to try to help us along I.e. Gun, Fire, Knife & Rope. Also could the direction of the writing clue us in on the direction of the writing, could it be treated as 4 separate parts with 3 being horizontal and one being vertical. But at the end of the it could be anything.
Have you tried out any of these ideas?
To be honest I would not know where to start.
To be honest I would not know where to start.
The place to start — if you are interested in that kind of thing — would be to download AZDecrypt (Jarlve makes it available for free). You could test out some of those ideas fairly quickly (the idea about text directions in the various sections).
I say this because lately I’ve been playing around with cipher transposition patterns that I think might be suggested by possible clues in other Z correspondence. I think your ideas are interesting, and worth checking out. Z408 was divided into 3 sections, so it doesn’t seem crazy that Z340 would be divided as well. And there is some evidence that suggests that the second half of Z340 may behave somewhat differently than the first half.
Here’s my view of where we are at:
The 340 is not a straightforward substitution cipher like the 408.
We have many interesting observations and have tried many things but so far nothing has panned out.
For me the most interesting hypotheses are period 19 transposition or the cipher containing many (intentional) errors/defects such as the W.B. Tyler 2 cipher.
It could very well be a fake cipher but the reality is that we just don’t know.
I don’t see a problem with this cipher.
I compared heatmaps of z340 and z408 and the only odd thing that I see is the "+" symbol that has a bit too high count. But as people pointed out before and what I’ve seen myself when encoding messages. If you create a cipher and constantly are creating new symbols even for reoccuring letters. You may run out of symbols.
When you have to encode a letter you don’t have a symbol for and you are out of symbols. You will have to swap an existing symbol for another symbol representing the same letter. My guess is that this created the high numbers of "+" symbols. And it is actually not that high.
I don’t think any of the tools I’ve seen can crack the z340 now or in the future. There are too many symbols and from what I’ve tested. The tools can’t solve less complicated error free ciphers with fewer symbols and with less even distribution and probably easier content than what I expect of z340.
I think that the only way to crack this now is to find some sort of crack in the encoding. Some weakness. Figure out how he encoded it and make some real good guesses from that. Doesn’t look very good I guess.
