The first three ciphers were sent to three different newspapers forming one message and known as the 408 cipher. It was solved by Donald Gene and Bettye June Harden of Salinas, California, who used homophonic substitution to identify the solution. Four months later on November 8th 1969 the 340 cipher arrived and to this day remains the most intriguing of them all, defying successive attempts to unlock its secret, if it has one at all. After all it may just be a collection of symbols without any reasonable order or logic, possibly constructed by a killer determined to seek payback for his original cipher being blown wide open in a matter of days.
But still the enthusiast is not discouraged, because for the individual or team that someday cracks open its code, may just release enough information that finally reveals the face of a killer, and along with it the most important thing of all, bringing some form of closure to all the victims family members and friends who have suffered intolerably throughout the last 45 years.
For those of you who would like to have a go at deciphering the infamous 340 cipher, please visit zodiackillerciphers.com, as the site has an extensive range of tools at its disposal for beginners and hardened Zodiac enthusiasts alike, including Webtoy, an automated letter insertion tool, complete with letter frequency and numerous other features. There is also a new version of CryptoScope, that can analyze in depth each of the Zodiac ciphers and more in much greater detail, with 37 ciphers on offer, so what have you got to lose, give it a go.