well i hope you are right and that you have opened a crack in the 340. i have been using the four quadrants in different arrangements and dropping them into Jarlves solver but with no results.
i have only briefly read through your process but i like how the solutions sound. on topic. lets hope its the right course.
cheers

lets hope its the right course.

I hope so as well. Thanks for having a look!

Hands down the best results i’ve seen so far. Surprised that those who are most keen in his ciphers have neglected to comment .

Hands down the best results i’ve seen so far. Surprised that those who are most keen in his ciphers have neglected to comment .

Thanks for the kind words. I hope they will chime in as well, in time.

I note that your other solutions point to suspect Rick Marshall, while this hints at ALA. I wondered if you draw any conclusions from this?

I note that your other solutions point to suspect Rick Marshall, while this hints at ALA. I wondered if you draw any conclusions from this?

Good question. It most likely means that part of a solution proposal or a full proposal is wrong. My z13 proposition is quite more speculative even though I really like the concept of overwriting.

Also, in the z340 proposal, the initials proposed at the end could be different. That’s why I made a point not to mention ALA because that particular 7 symbol route could me slightly different. The longer the route the more likely it is to be accurate.

I’m no cipher expert, but I see a lot of the same types of problems with this proposed solution as I’ve seen with others:

~ The "routes" taken to arrive at the solution appear to have no pattern. They just kind of go wherever.

~ Quite a few of the symbols solve to more than one letter, possibly allowing the ability to sort of "craft" a message.

~ The proposed solution appears to be largely gibberish.

No offense intended. Just being honest.

I’m no cipher expert, but I see a lot of the same types of problems with this proposed solution as I’ve seen with others:

~ The "routes" taken to arrive at the solution appear to have no pattern. They just kind of go wherever.

~ Quite a few of the symbols solve to more than one letter, possibly allowing the ability to sort of "craft" a message.

~ The proposed solution appears to be largely gibberish.

No offense intended. Just being honest.

– If you go back to the explanation, you will see that there are constraints, even though the routes are indeed not systematic.

– Some symbols allow for a very limited amount of letters, each of which are similar in form to the symbol. You will not find the same contraint in other solutions; if so, please share examples. I am not crafting a message at will.

– It’s unfortunate you can’t see the plain English sentences. Others I agree contain abbreviations and initials but take the time to go through them and the meaning is quite obvious in most cases if you consider the context.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to provide your feedback. I appreciate it.

It’s good that:

– You found the words "[R]oute Cipher" hidden in plain sight. (Although the way you got the "R" into place is fairly ad-hoc).
– You propose reversing symbols in areas that analysis has shown have higher bigram / trigram density if you do this. Especially good that you would do this in (what you call) Q4 (and most others call Q3). Although — it seems you reverse the text twice… so I guess I should remove this point of praise for the solution(?)

It’s less good that:

– The proposed decipherment is not a coherent message. I don’t find any of it compelling beyond the words "CIPHER" and perhaps "DOOM" / "TOOK". It’s not just that the words have such arbitrary routes, it’s also that they don’t make a message that makes any sense. Yeah, maybe the stuff about the tie would be interesting if not for the fact that part is along a quadrant boundary, and the most massaged into existence of all the text. Even the Graysmith decoding about LSD or the decoding from the History Channel documentary more compelling as actual text.
– A small point, but this solution would mean the backwards, crossed-out K was a complete red hearing. Possible, but it’s still a point against any proposed solution that side-steps explaining this (or doesn’t even use the letter in the solution).
– The "pivots" have no structural meaning in this solution and are even broken apart / unused in parts.
– Tons of other proposed decipherments cover 50-60% of the cipher text in crossword / word-match style grids. The reason they aren’t taken seriously is because of how numerous they are and how little they explain of the cipher from an information theory / prior probability POV. Your proposal isn’t as bad because the "key" you’re proposing has nearly perfect parsimony (aka mere rotation / no key). But I imagine I could find much better text in the 340 using this framework if I’m allowed to arbitrarily set routes and throw out 30-40% of the letters I didn’t want to use.
– Given that this does nothing to explain the P19 statistics, it can’t be understated how odd it would be if this solution were right (and the P19 stuff was all just a mirage). It’s certainly not impossible, but I don’t think it’s appreciated how unlikely that is. Having a solution that can’t account for the P19 statistics is a little like having a new unified theory of physics that can’t account for the Born statistics. It’s not a stodgy objection by people too set in their ways. It’s literally the highest information signal we have from the data, and this proposal doesn’t account for it.
– The quadrants would be more principled / believable if they fell along the creases in the original text. Your quadrant line between 10/11 does. Your other line does not:

Sorry to be primarily critical. I’m glad to see your new approaches and this is somewhat unique IMO. But this solution is probably in the unprovable even-if-right grey zone. I do still think your Z32 solution has a lot going for it — and the strength of it is what prompted me to comment on a z340 solution I might otherwise not spend time examining or offering feedback on.

I would be more open to this type of solution if it revealed more coherent plain text, used a more principled horizontal quadrant boundary, if it covered >85% of the letters, or if it had less arbitrary routing rules (i.e, similar shapes for routes or the alignment of letters pointed a way along the route, or the unused letters were the key to the routes, etc).

That fold image analysis is awesome. Is that new?

beijinghouse and others, thank you for spending the time and effort to criticize this attempt, I honestly appreciate it and am thankful for it, even though I get I am being more or less treated and patronized as a simpleton.

The reason I post here is to get honest feedback when sometimes I get too involved in an idea and can’t be self critical enough to see its flaws. That’s very likely the case here I imagine.

Given the responses of some and the telling silence of others, I will refrain from posting here anymore as I feel I can’t get this feedback without a dose of condescension and/or resentment to spend a few minutes on an idea.

beijinghouse and others, thank you for spending the time and effort to criticize this attempt, I honestly appreciate it and am thankful for it, even though I get I am being more or less treated and patronized as a simpleton.

The reason I post here is to get honest feedback when sometimes I get too involved in an idea and can’t be self critical enough to see its flaws. That’s very likely the case here I imagine.

Given the responses of some and the telling silence of others, I will refrain from posting here anymore as I feel I can’t get this feedback without a dose of condescension and/or resentment to spend a few minutes on an idea.

You are obviously not a simpleton. I did not reply to your thread because there is nothing much to add besides that I feel your solution candidate is unverifiable.

This board has lots of great ideas, but I agree it can feel pretty abrasive too — especially when sharing new ideas. I feel belittled and attacked by comments that seem to treat me like a simpleton all the time. Sorry if I added to that feeling for you. I wouldn’t want to discourage you from participating.

That said, it’s pretty hard to offer feedback here. Being more formal and polite is often seen as condescending. Being more direct and frank is almost always construed as being rude. Whatever you do, people claim you should have done the opposite. There’s basically no winning. That’s why people are silent or reluctant to comment. Largo is the smartest of all of us for constantly broadcasting that all of his comments are run through a translator.

This board has lots of great ideas, but I agree it can feel pretty abrasive too — especially when sharing new ideas. I feel belittled and attacked by comments that seem to treat me like a simpleton all the time. Sorry if I added to that feeling for you. I wouldn’t want to discourage you from participating.

That said, it’s pretty hard to offer feedback here. Being more formal and polite is often seen as condescending. Being more direct and frank is almost always construed as being rude. Whatever you do, people claim you should have done the opposite. There’s basically no winning. That’s why people are silent or reluctant to comment. Largo is the smartest of all of us for constantly broadcasting that all of his comments are run through a translator.

not here beijinghouse. i have never found anyone condescending or abrasive from the main group. post all your ideas freely. from what i have seen you smokie largo doranchac ETC are on song. sometimes the no feedback is because people are tired and taking a break or your genius is above us mere mortals and its hard to follow.. and that was not condescending for most of us its a secondary hobby. Cheers