entropy, Subject: What’s with the triangles??? Fri Jan 11, 2013 5:34 pm
I’ve always wondered why Z had so much difficulty with substitution when it came to the various forms of triangle symbols he used in the 408 cipher. There seem to be a few substitution errors with non-triangle symbols but all but one, IMO, can be better explained as errors of spelling rather than substitution.
– EXPERENCE
– FORREST
– PARADICE
All of these are consistent with Z’s shaky phonetic spelling in his letters. Only DANGEROUE(S) is clearly an error of substitution as far as I’m concerned. There are so many issues with Z’s substitution of the filled triangle and dotted triangle, however, that the Hardens came to the conclusion that the filled and dotted triangles could stand to represent A or S interchangeably rather than having any specific letter substitution like EVERY OTHER SYMBOL used by Z. The filled triangle, for example, represents S four times, A three times and A or I depending on Z’s intended spelling of the word ANAMAL. There are only two dotted triangles, one representing A and one representing S.
http://www.zodiackiller.com/VTHCipher.html
While the Hardens’ conclusion is reasonable and was necessary for a cohesive solution, I wonder if this was what Z actually intended. It could just be that Z was confused and mixed up his different forms of triangles but it seems that he was fairly precise with all of his other substitution.
I really wonder whether all forms of triangles weren’t intended to represent the letters A, I and S interchangeably and that Z could then choose whichever letter he wanted the triangles to represent. It kind of makes intuitive sense to me having three different values for a three-sided symbol and could explain how Z upped the level of complexity in the 340 cipher. Just speculating but he could allow rotated or reversed versions of symbols to represent multiple letters, for instance:
Allowing the symbols ^, >, V and < to represent the letters A, B, C and D and randomly choosing which to use when one of these letters came up. It would increase the difficulty of the cipher exponentially if not make it totally unsolveable.
Hope that makes some sense. 
Just a random speculation for a rainy Friday night…
Daniel Gillotti, Subject: Re: What’s with the triangles??? Fri Jan 11, 2013 6:57 pm
Hi Entropy:
Those dang “Deltas” again…I can tell you this…I believe the misspellings are intentional not because he was trying to make it more difficult to solve. The misspelled words have another purpose that I haven’t got around to discussing. The triangle and square only appear together 1 time in both ciphers. To say that the triangle or any of its variations is important would be an understatement.
The 18 left over characters and the misspelled words have another story to tell…
Daniel
entropy, Subject: Re: What’s with the triangles??? Fri Jan 11, 2013 7:05 pm
I should have saved the thread title for your theory, Daniel. Yours actually sounds a lot more exciting!
Daniel Gillotti, Subject: Re: What’s with the triangles??? Fri Jan 11, 2013 7:28 pm
Hi Entropy:
I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to impose my work into your post. You bring up a very good point that needs to be explored in more detail…I have a lot of respect for your cipher and Zodiac research and I want to help contribute to it. So I hope others will respond to this thread.
Daniel
entropy, Subject: Re: What’s with the triangles??? Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:00 pm
Hi Entropy:
I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to impose my work into your post. You bring up a very good point that needs to be explored in more detail…I have a lot of respect for your cipher and Zodiac research and I want to help contribute to it. So I hope others will respond to this thread.
Daniel
No worries, Daniel. Just kidding. I’d be interested to see your take on the triangles/deltas as well. I’m no good at cipher discussions because I’m graphically challenged. Personally, I glaze over trying to read any cipher observations that aren’t expressed visually so I usually leave this thread to the experts.
doranchak, Subject: Re: What’s with the triangles??? Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:02 am
I think Zodiac also confused 
and 
symbols. The symbol occurs 14 times, and is only misused once, for the "W" in the word "SLOW". The symbol is used to replace "I" the other 13 times it occurs.
But the symbol looks a lot like a triangle, so it’s feasible that he had an earlier draft he was working from, and simply miscopied it, which is consistent with all the other triangle-oriented mistakes.
More details here, if you want to explore the other oddities in the 408:
http://zodiackillerciphers.com/408/key.html#1 (See annotation number 18 for the "W" vs "I" business.)
There’s a thread somewhere on ZKF about the pattern of substitutions for the 
symbols. If you look at the intended plain text for those, they occur in this order: A, S, I, S, A, S, A, A. There’s almost a pattern there, of alternating between the "A" (or "I"), and the "S". And the pattern breaks down at the end of the sequence, much like the other homophonic cycles break down towards Part 3 of the cipher text. But I don’t think the pattern is strong enough to be conclusive. I still think it was just a mistake by Z. Or maybe the reproductions of the cipher text are not fully accurate, leading to ambiguous interpretations of the symbols.
I do like your idea about him doing the same with symbols in the 340 that could be mistaken with one another. Like it in the sense that it may be right; I dislike it in the sense that if Z did that a lot, the cipher may be very difficult or impossible to solve.
traveller1st, Subject: Re: What’s with the triangles??? Mon Jan 21, 2013 6:06 am
I wonder if it was a culmination of circumstances?
Not paying attention, splitting the cipher (did he approach it like 3 separate ciphers rather than simply creating one and cutting it into 3) into bite sized chunks and forgetting what was what between each bit, working on it on his lunch break on the day he forgot his reading glasses, triangle blindness or simply not that ‘clever’.
Anywho – link to relevant thread from QT on the same topic.
http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … -structure
entropy, Subject: Re: What’s with the triangles??? Thu Jan 24, 2013 1:27 pm
I wonder if it was a culmination of circumstances?
Not paying attention, splitting the cipher (did he approach it like 3 separate ciphers rather than simply creating one and cutting it into 3) into bite sized chunks and forgetting what was what between each bit, working on it on his lunch break on the day he forgot his reading glasses, triangle blindness or simply not that ‘clever’.
Anywho – link to relevant thread from QT on the same topic.
Very possible, traveller, although somehow I don’t see Z completing the 340 cipher on his lunch break and mailing it off that day. My vote would be that he probably put a whole lot of thought into it but just wasn’t quite as clever as he thought he was… and maybe mild-moderate triangle blindness. The medication for that wasn’t available back in 1969, ya know. The side-effects are terrible but thank God nobody has to suffer from that anymore. 
FWIW, I think it’s interesting to look at "mistakes" in the 408 cipher as possible clews toward how the 340 cipher may have been constructed. Not intentional clews mind you but errors in method that might reveal how the 340 MIGHT have been constructed. That’s was the idea behind the thread anyway. It’s probably total rubbish but I still think this thread is one of the least appreciated threads on this site:
http://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com … 24-44-rows
Thanks for the link to QT’s thread on the same topic. I think QT expressed it 10X better actually although I still believe the spelling mistakes are likely just that rather than substitution error. I’m stubborn about that.
