rand, Subject: Why line 11 of 340 is important Mon Aug 01, 2011 10:34 pm
I don’t think that the 340 is cipher, and that’s why it hasn’t been solved. Instead, I think it’s a word puzzle. Why?
Look at line 11 of the 340:
First part:
U + R/OTEIDYB
Solution:
U+R = YOU ARE
/OTEIDYB = TO DIE BY (written backwards)
then there’s 9BTMKO = BOM T9K = Bomb tic
So the line reads: YOU ARE TO DIE BY BOMB, TIC
IMO, this is not coincidence and it’s not a coincidence that Z followed the 340 a day later with a BOMB threat. Z constructed this line as a clue to solve the puzzle.
But it didn’t work. So, in frustration, Z writes in the next letter: "By the way have you solved the last cipher I sent you? My Name is –"
The "cipher" clearly can be solved as: MY NAM KANE or MY NAME KAN. It’s a simple anagram. He’s not trying to give his real name. He’s saying: Have you solved the 340 yet? No? Well here’s a clue: My name is —
Hi,
You can also start @ line.10 and continue to line 11:
<FBY – U+R / TEIDY (ydiet) = FBI you are idiot.,
which is the only readable message of the cipher, but not necessarily a solution. The puzzle can be a ciphergram, anagram or crossword or a mix of different type of a riddle.
If it is a crossword you can find some words like: her, guilt, boy, shot, doll, wood, pond, body, I’m, lyir (liar?), etc., but seems to be a coincidence. Anyway it’s a nice riddle but probably won’t help to find the fugitive.
That would certainly fit with the reading "zodiac" at the very end, and "her" at the top.
Read that way, the end of line 1 is "ki*ltgod" (killed god).
This is getting interesting.
Some quick observations using Doranchak’s Webtoy.
Replacing all symbols by their closest plain text match, the vowels are consistently under-represented, except for O which comes out at the right frequency. E is only at 3 percent. If he is skipping vowels, that would actually make sense.
In addition to the passage identified by Rand above, I can see the following at first glance:
Line 1: Her […] kilt god
Line 3 starts with by
Line 5 has diof (die of), starting at position 7
Line 18 has osht, which could stand for shot
Line 19 has boyob, which is boy spelled in each direction sharing the y.
Note that diof is missing the e, which is consistent with the low frequency for that letter, and a good way to throw off conventional code breaking.
Most likely going off the deep end here, but I think this is worth exploring. By replacing all symbols with their closest plain text analog, I am getting some good agreement between expected and plain text frequency. Line 11 is definitely interesting but, lines 9 and 10 are pretty stunning as well. Below I have put * for symbols I haven’t assigned to a plain text letter.
line 9: D*ME8EZROFBCIA**K (me 8 zero FBI CIA) [what was the count at the time of the 340? Note that this line also has all the letters for zodiac or zodiak, in addition to the me]
line 10: **INVEAJEOA**FBI* (in vajeo [valejo?] FBI
line 11: NER*OTEIDYBA8TMKO (to die by bait)
There is assorted other goodness in there, including HNAKS (Khans?) just before the zodiac sign and the sequence ZODAIK in the final line.
I must specify that I assigned E to the cross and the zodiac symbol, and that brings me very close to the expected frequency. That is a deviation from assigning closest plain text letter, but makes sense in terms of frequency. And putting all those e-like symbols in there would have been too much of a give away.
I’ve always thought the last line seemed to suggest "Signed" from the middle zodiac symbol backwards to the left, and then "Zodiac" from the symbol to the right.
Line 10 suggests "zodiac loves …"
Or perhaps, "Love, Zodiac".
Seems too easy…
Line 10 suggests "zodiac loves …"
Or perhaps, "Love, Zodiac".
If you assign letter ‘ i ‘ to zodiac sign you will get ‘ i luv ya ‘. But i don’t think that this slang was known to the author of this riddle.
I get:
1: HER
2: BODY
3: BY
8: NY
9: ZAROFF BOOK
10: FBI
11: DIE BY (possibly TOMKO)
12: TOM
17: LOOK
18: TOSCHI
19: BOY
20: ZODIAC SPEAKING MD
I understand this is absolutely meaningless.
