THE 340 CIPHER-A FOOL'S ERRAND

11/3/2018

THE 340 CIPHER WAS CRACKED ON DECEMBER 3RD 2020 BY DAVE ORANCHAK, SAM BLAKE AND JARL VAN EYCKE, SO THIS EARLIER ARTICLE SHOULD BE VIEWED IN RESPECT TO RECENT DEVELOPMENTS.

In a recent article David Oranchak posed the question "Are the Ciphers Gibberish", analyzing the pros and cons to the legitimacy of the Zodiac 340 cipher. There is, however, another legitimate argument to be discussed when searching for a solution to the Zodiac Killer's second cipher. Is it worth trying to solve at all? If it does contain a message, it will likely be a collection of inane ramblings akin to the solved 408 cipher. There will of course be the immense notoriety attached to your name, having been the cryptographer who broke the infamous Zodiac code, from which numerous television appearances and a book deal will inevitably follow. In the midst of tragedy, your name will be up in lights. But here is the reality check. Even if you do achieve the seemingly insurmountable task of unequivocally solving the 340 cipher, then comes the next insurmountable hurdle - convincing people you have the correct solution. In a Zodiac community wearily grazing on skepticism and fueled by a heavy dose of déjà vu syndrome, your perfectly good solution will likely drift on down the river with barely a ripple from the esteemed adjudicators.

Even if it does get snagged by an overhanging branch for a fleeting moment, attempting to prove that the "key" used to decipher it, is the one Zodiac intended, will again create a hill you can never climb.

There are so many claimed solutions to the 340 cipher haystack, that if one really existed, it will eventually be as hard to find as a solution to the cipher itself. David Oranchak stated here:
"The 340 cipher has 63 unique symbols. If one of 26 plaintext letters can be assigned to each symbol, then the number of possible solutions is 26 raised to the 63rd power. So, how many of those solutions would computers need to examine PER SECOND to finish within 100 years? The answer is about 4.4 x 10^80 solutions, or 440 million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion. This is LIGHT YEARS beyond what current computers are capable of.
According to Top500.org, the world's fastest supercomputer as of November, 2011, achieved a computational power of 10.51 Petaflop/s, or 10.51 quadrillion floating point operations per second. If you were somehow able to check a decryption solution of the 340 cipher using a single floating point operation, then this supercomputer could go through all of the possible solutions to the 340 cipher in about 1.3×10^57 years. By comparison, our humble universe is estimated to be only 13.7 x 10^9 years old!"

With so many variables that can be applied to the cipher, or more importantly, the one conjured up by the warped and dissociative brain of Zodiac, the probability is, that a supercomputer designed by logic and born from reality will probably be heading course on the wrong superhighway. Throw in a handful of Zodiac errors into the mix, could mean proving your solution an impossible task to the baying hordes of furrowed experts, armed with statistical probabilities. Solving the 340 cipher may yet prove to be the easy part, however, convincing somebody else you have, could take a quadrillion years you haven't got.

David Oranchak stated "When Z408 was cracked, the papers talked about how the solvers took advantage of patterns found in the cipher text. Zodiac could have focused on somehow removing those patterns from Z340. Or maybe he found some obscure idea in a book or one of those pulp fiction detective stories".
Herein lies part of the problem. If you discover an obscure idea that answers key elements of the 340 cipher, or provides a readable message (possibly using a rotating key code), then it could be argued that your obscure idea is so obscure, that it isn't worth considering as a credible solution and thereby roundly dismissed as lunacy. The more crazy the solution, the more unlikely it is, despite being crafted by the perfectly sane Zodiac.

Alternatively, how do you prove the cipher gibberish while it still remains unsolved in the eyes of most observers. By extension, if it's unsolved, then it still has a possible solution. But be warned - if you do find the real solution to the 340 cipher, you will have to work far harder than the Harden's did in 1969 to convince the world you are correct. And my guess is, you never will.

80 Comments

Nobody

11/3/2018 02:08:55 pm

It cannot be solved and I will tell you why.

In future the Zodiac is captured and he is not a person anybody ever suspected. He tells the world that the solution is actually a couple of initials in the far bottom left corner. The rest of the cipher was just filling.

Nobody will believe him and the current bunch of self-professes expert cryptographers with big vested interests will all suddenly go mute.

Now suppose someone knew the Zodiac and the Zodiac had told him the solution many years ago. If this person had tried to tell the cryptographers prior to the capture of the Zodiac, the solution would have been instantly dismissed for being too highly variable.

I was recently informed by one such expert that the cipher will almost certainly be in English and he doubts a foreign language. Well what if the Zodiac turns out to be a Ukrainian immigrant who decided to create a complex double shift cipher based on English first then Ukrainian second?

Of course any such suggestion would be too highly variable to ever be believable.

Nobody

11/3/2018 02:45:47 pm

The other thing about the 340 cipher Richard is this. The vast majority of the human population have either never heard of it or simply could not care less about it. Tell the average person in the street that you think you may have just solved the Zodiac's 340 and they will look at you perplexed and ask "What is the Zoodyic's 340?" At the other extreme are the tiny competitive niche groups who have grown jaded and tired and cynical, who live in an age of digital computers that can do complex algorithms and lightning fast calculations. Those who program the software often trust the calculations of these machines more than their own judgement, or at least they are prone to allow such machinery to compromise their own better judgements. It is in their score points they ultimately trust. So we end up trusting the words of a psychopathic computer with a pleasing name like "Chocolate Fudge Sundae".

This is the reality and thus the present state of play. The cipher only has legendary status for these two highly select niche groups in reality: one being the semi-professional cryptography community, the other being the amateur Zodiac researcher community. As for LE, few have an understanding of even basic cryptography and so they rely on the experts. Ciphers from criminals are left it in their "capable" hands. LE have largely washed their hands of the 340 so good luck sending it to a PD or the FBI. They will probably just hit the delete button on it or shred it rather than waste time and resources assessing its legitimacy. It will not be considered a high priority so will linger and ultimately get lost in the system.

As you suggest Richard, a legitimate solution is in any case impossible to believe for all of the reasons you provide. Too much time has gone by and yes indeed, if Donald Hardens was still alive today and had only just solved the first Zodiac cipher, I wonder how the cynical and distrusting world of today would receive him? He would have had to work extremely hard indeed in order to be believed. People may even accuse him of having deliberately hoaxed the solution and many would suggest this is evidence he must have had a part in writing it. Collusion would be on everybody's minds. He would have had to prove his motives for solving it and ultimately his innocence. He may have even ended up in jail for masterminding a fraudulent hoax correspondence under the guise of a killer. In the present world such breaking news would contain huge elements of fear and he may even be tarred with participating in an act of terror if he could not explain himself eloquently enough.

But I digress.

The reality is that the majority of the human population really could not give a flying stuff about this cipher. For that matter, LE could not really care a damn about it either. It is old and obsolete. That is a simple fact that few in the amateur Zodiac community can ever fully appreciate.

So we either try to solve it at our peril or don't even bother. I guess they are the only sad realities presented to us as amateur investigators. :(

Drew

11/3/2018 04:19:51 pm

I am not a real cipher guy, but I have put in a truly embarrassing amount of time trying to solve this darn thing as well as trying to disprove that a legit message can be extracted. There are a multitude of elements that make it seem like Zodiac composed it to appear like a real cipher with repeating bigrams, trigrams, and patterns that suggest symbol cycling, but there are also several aspects of symmetry that seem like they could not be random, like cheeky hints that it is ultimately just an annoying art project designed to torment his audience (let alone the unlikely to be coincidental 'word images' of God, Zrof, By four times, and Zodaik miraculously appearing at the end). The dropdown technique seemingly employed in the 408 to create the final nonsense line (rather than just an incompatible sequence) should have been the biggest hint of what tactics were to be used in his follow up.

I have never come across a convincing proposal for what could have motivated Zodiac to compose a second real cipher. The Marsh challenge to me seems like a perfect reason not to attempt a second solvable puzzle. In my opinion he created the 408 to be solved relatively quickly (though not as quickly as it was) to get his ever so important message out to a wide audience and to establish the themes he would explore throughout the rest of the correspondences in his campaign. I think the 340 contains the same message that his clearly unsolvable 13 and 32 character ciphers. All of the odd numbered characters represent the letter H and all the even ones represent A and the message just repeats.

The best observation to illustrate how unlikely it is that there is a message in the 340 in my opinion was discovered years ago and it is as follows. It is a hard thing to describe but here goes.

On row 9, column 8, a four character sequence begins downward to row 12 "R-J-I and then a half-shaded box", which completes an identical rightward "R-J-I shaded-box" sequence on row 12. If it is a legit cipher the same four letter sequence is connected vertically and horizontally. Has anyone ever noticed an anomalous alignment naturally occurring in another cipher or a paragraph of regular text?

As statistically implausible as such connected strings naturally occurring seems, a few characters away a second such anomaly begins on row 11, column 13, downward to row 14 "Backwards B-Dot-Backwards C-V", which completes a connection to the same four letter "B.CV" rightward sequence on row 14.

I don't know if Oranchak has ever figured out the statistics of that occurring once let alone twice but I bet it is around one in a gazillion. If the thing is supposed to solve like a crossword puzzle otherwise littered with nulls which inconsistently solve to actual letters at over spots in the cipher then it is not a real cipher and Zodiac knew it was unsolvable from the jump. Unless Zodiac had a William Carlos Williams level command of the English language entirely absent in his twenty odd letters I believe there is nothing there in any conventional sense to solve. I have a lot of respect for Oranchak and many of the other dedicated code warriors still battling this but I don't think after another 50 years that any real solution will emerge.

Alrighty then, that is my 'Zodiac was a master of deception' rant for the day! Cheers everybody

Richard

11/3/2018 04:39:55 pm

Good observation Drew, how likely for two such patterns to emerge of 7 characters each, seems an almighty stretch. Certainly, the same character in each formation could be represented by a different letter, but that doesn't change the fact that two sets of ciphertext display such a pattern. I am sure David has done this, but do such patterns exist in the ciphertext of the 408 to this degree, or is the 340 unique in this respect.

Drew

11/3/2018 04:44:23 pm

I don't see any such 'connecting strings' patterns in the 408 and I don't see any symmetrical elements or intriguing 'word images' in it either.

Nobody

11/3/2018 04:59:38 pm

BTW, I think Dave has already debunked such patterns because if you randomize the cipher you can find similar patterns. This suggests the patterns are entirely coincidental (to him?)... I think.

Nobody

11/3/2018 05:14:05 pm

Oops. Sorry Drew. I thought you were referring to this pattern.

http://www.zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?p=1824

Nobody

11/3/2018 04:57:17 pm

Drew, perhaps the cipher functions on a different level and what we are seeing is just the "outer wrapping"? In other words it has to be changed somehow. I have for many years maintained that there are far too many symbols for the size of this cipher. Basically this is exactly what the Marsh challenge shows us. But the thing is, if the cipher involves two or three or perhaps four independent homophonic shifts, by the time we get to the third shift it may then satisfy the requirements of the Marsh test.

I have no doubt that there have been some very good ideas presented on this cipher over the years, and, for the most part those who have discovered the ideas have been left feeling more than a little deflated and disillusioned to the point of being depressed as soon as they face the ultimate "trial by fire" from those who consider themselves the arbiters of cryptography. Many people have received little in the way of thanks, often not so much as a "Mind you I do like this one part of your idea. It has merits and perhaps we should look into this some more." No, it is easier to simply fob people off and make them feel like wannabe hoaxers or complete morons. In some cases that I personally do know about, their ideas have even been rehashed or reworked at a later time by those same arbiters who had several months or years beforehand told the person "Nice try but don't give up your day job". Some may call this stealing, but in such a competitive environment, what the hell, the rules only seem to apply to the victors. They govern the rules of etiquette associated with cipher solving and unless they themselves come up with a solution, however preposterous it seems to be to most intelligent people outside of their inner circle, their solution will be the only one worth discussing. Then it will be discussed in highly technical and verbose terms beyond the comprehension of the "peasantry" and all we will get to see is a breaking news presentation on the Discovery Channel.

Of course at the other end of the spectrum there are the true "ignorant peasants" who have come up with some truly ridiculous solutions based on anagrams and acronyms and they usually read like a mentally retarded sailor who is three sheets to the wind. But of course that can all be explained away because the Zodiac was pretending to be stupid or on drugs or insane or dropped on his head as a child or something etc. etc.

But I have known of some two or three shift ciphers that have indeed made perfect sense, and presented a clear and concise and elegant message. These were dismissed because of the problem of variability and the fact that it is impossible to know if the method has involved characters that have been cherry picked to suit the solution.

For the amateur cryptographer the 340 presents a "no win" situation.

Drew

11/3/2018 06:37:25 pm

I could imagine a satisfying solution that came from two keys (one for the top, one for the bottom) or four keys (for each quadrant) but I haven't seen any such solution and Doranchak's wonderful webtoy doesn't allow multiple key attempts.

Perhaps the most perplexing pattern in the 340 is the high number of repeating character relationships 19 spaces apart (down one row over two columns) but that observation too was discovered many years ago and it has not produced a decent solve either as far as I am aware. Even that curious pattern though could be manufactured with relative ease if the Zodiac started creating the effect after he made the top half randomly and then sought patterns to repeat below.

I'm sure I sound jaded and stubborn but I assure you I am just frustrated. If you have any links to share showing a decent shift based solution I would be both interested and cordial.

Nobody

11/3/2018 07:13:50 pm

Thanks Drew, I guess a lot of us have become jaded and weary because of being made to feel so jaded and weary by other jaded and weary people. If that makes sense? :-)

I often refer to Ted Kaczynski's codes, not that he was the Zodiac of course, but the fact that he did his own thing with regard to cryptography. The words that stand out for me on this web page are: "[his journals were] encrypted using cipher systems of Kaczynski’s own design". Of his own design!

This means his ciphers were not the kind that most cryptographers would consider valid ciphers. If such ciphers are too obscure, they would have been dismissed as either potential hoaxes or constructed by seemingly unknown methods. Also, any attempts to decipher them can be easily debunked on the basis of too many unknown factors.

It would be near impossible to solve a cipher based on this man's encryption methods unless you had the original key and code table.

I have read some accounts where the FBI claimed they had already broken some his code but once they found TedK's journals they had all the tools to crack his codes. Personally, given the extreme variability in TedK's ciphers, I am sure the true story is they had actually not scratched the surface.

As von Klaus Schmeh says "It seems unlikely that FBI cryptanalysists had been successful without these aids."

Nobody

11/3/2018 07:15:20 pm

I forgot the link

http://scienceblogs.de/klausis-krypto-kolumne/2016/09/04/the-ciphers-of-the-unabomber/

Drew

11/3/2018 09:15:10 pm

"I guess a lot of us have become jaded and weary because of being made to feel so jaded and weary by other jaded and weary people. If that makes sense? :-)"

It certainly makes sense to me! The Zodiac Effect has taken its toll on us all! The ciphers are the most frustrating part, especially because we know that there's no way his name or true motive is in there. This dude was not about to start sharing. Even Dave O knows that the gibberish theory is as strong as any explanation our best and brightest have offered. The mystique of the Zodiac fosters the imagination to conjure a criminal mastermind capable of outwitting everyone and as a comic book lover I have spent years planted squarely in that camp. I know better but I'm not a detective charged with the detail and honestly it's more interesting to ponder the far out possibilities.

Kaczynski embodies the kind of warped evil brilliance our imaginations tend to ascribe to the mysterious Zodiac. The addictive thing is that we can't really be certain what he was capable of. Even deciding that he only eluded capture in Presidio Heights because of pure luck requires a leap of faith. Was he a disinformation agent or a rogue CIA operative on some deranged mission to waste city resources? Did he have a partner filming all of his murders for a sick snuff film? No, but other than the fact that the lighting conditions would have made a mess of the production it's not exactly easy to disprove.

I definitely think it is possible that Zodiac created his own brand of cipher that only he could solve. He could have swapped rows or interwoven a complex theologically inspired numerological scheme like Richard has laid out. It is a reasonable theory that would serve his purpose of publicly stumping the authorities who challenged him. To me though that does not sound much different than creating a puzzle with no solution at all. Perhaps it is a matter of interpretation but I think the problem comparing Kaczynski's cipher techniques with Zodiac's is intent. The Unabomber was encrypting so that his information would remain a mystery while Zodiac if he was taking a swing at Marsh's pitch in good faith was purportedly attempting to communicate something decipherable. As you stated or quoted Kaczynski's ciphers would have remained unsolved if they had not discovered his notes.

I may have had a point to make when I started writing this to Nobody no less but I think I have become too weary and jaded to remember, mostly just weary though!

Nobody

11/3/2018 04:28:06 pm

Please tell me to shut up whenever you like Richard. :-)

I just wanted to add: It is very interesting that Donald Harden evidently forgot to keep all of his worksheets. But back then this "oversight" on his past was either overlooked or not viewed as being all that important. The police were willing to take him at his word. He would of course have been briefly interviewed and had his prints taken to exclude him as a possible suspect.

Compare that to today. To present a "valid" solution you must now be able to show every single step of the process that led you to the solution. Therein lies the problem. If you use a double or triple shift, then, given the high variability factor of this cipher, won't it always appear as though you have cherry picked the letters to correspond to certain characters in order to bring about your solution?

As evidence of Donald Harden's work, all he ever really provided were substitution tables. How would a solution be received today for the 340 if all someone could provide is a crudely hand drawn substitution table? People would immediately say "This looks suspicious."

I am of course not agreeing with that guy on YouTube who thinks Harden was the Zodiac. That theory is loony toons. I am just saying that in the present climate of fear generated by politics in America and abroad, would his solution not be viewed today with so much skepticism and suspicion that he would have ended up wishing he had never tried to solve the thing?

A solution to the 340? The present world and its paranoid obsession with "fake news" seems totally geared against it.

N/B

11/3/2018 04:30:53 pm

edit: "oversight" on his part.

Richard

11/3/2018 05:01:05 pm

If you keep shifting or rotating the key you use, you could literally create any message you like. If you use different techniques as you move along the cipher, I suspect the less likely the solution will be believed.
The 4 by's in the 4 quadrants, the paradise slaves cross, in the beginning god, the Boo on the 14th line, the Exorcist symbolism on the 6th line, the near Zodiac on the last line, the three 0's and three 8's created from placing the real Zodiac under it, the symmetry created using the same technique on the 13 symbol cipher, the same code key creating 444 on both the third and fourth cipher to equal 888, along with the 888 on the 13 hole postcard. I presume this has all be placed under the banner 'coincidence' or searching for patterns, which is the idea after all. What will ultimately convince, I am not sure what else is required. The code remained the same over two ciphers, that happened to tally with the the three circled 8's on the April 20th cipher. This wasn't shifting the key at all, but evidently still isn't enough. I know you feel the same.

Nobody

11/3/2018 05:24:15 pm

Yes that is the problem in essence Richard.

So there are really only two choices:

1) The Zodiac gets caught and tells us his encryption methods, keys and what he intended. Who is going to argue with him? I suspect some people actually will. They will claim he is lying or cannot be the real Zodiac because they will claim he did not use a valid cryptography technique.

2) We pretend we are psychic and therefore "know" what the Zodiac was thinking. We make up a cipher based on these "channeled thoughts" under the guise of intellectual analysis. This of course leads one down the path of self-delusion, a place where many a would-be Zodiac cryptographer has met his doom.

Nobody

11/3/2018 09:45:33 pm

I guess my only advice to anyone stupid enough - uh,"keen" enough - to plunge themselves headlong into the billowy waves of the 340 is this:-

You must make sure to meticulously record everything you do, taking note of every detail, and include a time and date stamp on everything. That way you can show that you are not trying to perpetrate a hoax in order to make your cipher fit a pet suspect, nor did you arrive at your answer by cherry picking letters for a preconceived solution.

But how anyone could actually do all of that and stay sane is quite beyond me, because other people will always find and pick at the holes in your methodology and reasoning. "Oh you left out a step there? Why?", "How did you reach that conclusion?", "Why did you assign that particular letter to that character when you have already assigned it 5 times already for other characters?", "If you use this other letter for a character you get a totally different word!" etc. etc. etc.

The other problem of course is that even if you do meticulously videotape yourself for hours and days, perhaps weeks and months, and include a time and date stamp on all of your work, someone is still likely to then claim that you faked the footage. So all of your hard work gets composted before your eyes.

Most amateur cryptos find it relaxing to sit down at the end of a hard day, find a spot that is quiet, and concentrate on solving a cipher or two. Often they never believe they are ever going to solve it, but they just keep tinkering because it interest's them. But when a solution suddenly appears before their eyes, they can suddenly find themselves struggling to "reverse engineer" their own steps through the mess of work files to understand how they reached that point.

Sadly if anyone discovers a potentially viable solution, either by manual (using brain, eyes, hands, pen and paper) or artificial means (using software), the task of re-tracing the steps that led to that solution can sometimes be extremely difficult. In an effort to match up output to original input, it is very easy to miss critical steps that you discarded along the way. Any attempt at short-cutting your actual method can then appear to others as if you have simply forcing your way back from a preconceived solution in order to match it to the cipher. So your solution seems forced and invented when you show it to others.

Then of course if you do manage to keep a consistent and meticulous timeline of your work, you run into the next huge hole in the road. People will argue that because your solution required such a very verbose explanation to support it, they will consider this a sign of theoretical weakness. They will claim that a good cipher should speak for itself. It should not need pages of documentation and interpretation to support it.

I was recently using decryption software and in three or four simple steps I got a readable solution from the 340. However I forgot to save a couple of early steps in my process, because, really I was just tinkering about and not expecting a solution to suddenly jump out at me. So of course now my solution is lost forever. I have tried to backwards engineer it but to no avail. I sent it to a cryptographer and he basically said that without the missing steps it just looks forced. So basically pointless.

Basically you are damned, no matter what you do. But good luck to those that try.

For what it is worth (nothing), the very readable solution I got began with "I am wanting to talk about it, my way of life. I am in a classroom painting a portrait of blood ecstasy."

It ended by saying "Good luck! Name your name. There are many".

I am not willing to discuss the body of the message as I feel it is best left unstated on here.

Drew

11/3/2018 10:20:17 pm

I think you’re solution is stupid. Totally kidding! People on those boards can be absurdly arrogant. Responders like that all have one thing in common: they haven’t solved it either. I see no value in reacting that way to shared ideas from people volunteering their time and working towards the same goal. Sorry to hear you’ve had such experiences. It’s usually pretty friendly around here.

Nobody

11/3/2018 11:50:46 pm

Thanks Drew, I gave up caring about the 340. The rest of the world does not carer about it and it won't help anybody catch the killer. So many people expect it to reveal a name or some vital clue about his identity. Wishful thinking at best.

I have had other ideas relating to geometric shapes, that can be joined to make other more complex shapes, but really, what is the point when you just get told this is "random noise" or the result of "anomalies"? If you are not one the crypto elite, it really is a futile pursuit. they just show you randomized versions of the same cipher and tell you "Here is another shape and another one." So it seems that by randomizing a cipher you can prove that it is already random. I am not sure of the logic in that, but oh well.

I heave heard other people postulate that if you could write a complex computer algorithm and apply it to the 340 you could draw a picture that may resemble a photo or image. It may turn out to be just a representation of that gun sight symbol, for eg. or maybe something more detailed such as a black and white photo image. But the problem, again, is that people will merely say you have designed the software with that image already in mind. They will presume you have faked it.

So really, it is a lost cause.

I agree there can be some disturbingly arrogant people on online forums when it comes to cipher solutions, suspects and theories. Well anything for that matter. There are extreme elements in most things in life. Even if you were to join your local bonsai club I am sure you would find some disturbingly arrogant members. One of the most arrogant people I ever knew was in fact a member of a local cards club. He was okay providing everybody else allowed him to win all the time. Otherwise he would start tipping tables and chairs over, hurling abuse, and accuse other members of cheating. Really, it was only a game of cards and nobody was playing for money, but some people can be very touchy and take trivial things way too seriously. It takes all kinds to make a world, as they say.

Nobody

11/4/2018 12:01:11 am

Actually Drew, I was not complaining about bad responders so much as stating the reality of the situation. Well Richard has already outlined all of the multitude of problems in his very well written above. I applaud his efforts to provide a good synopsis and an expose of the many pitfalls involved with trying to solve the 340 cipher. I do not claim to have ever solved it. I only found what I considered a readable message at the end of a software iteration after I had left the computer running, but I could no longer re-trace my steps back to the original cipher. So if I do not know the steps that means it is not a valid solution and should be ignored as irrelevant. That is just reality.

Carl Karas link

11/4/2018 02:54:07 pm

The key is right there in the accompanying letter. It involves the placement of the words 'My Thing'. It's a straight substitution cipher. And Just as the FBI indicated the content is mostly in the first three lines of the top and bottom half. The solution rhymes, and contains the phrase 'a knife or a gun', and the fragment 'no. nine' which is also found in the Belli Letter. No one seems to be the least interested and after a year of trying to get it recognized I realize there's not much left I can do to bring attention to it. It's been either dismissed or derided.

There are researchers out there who do not want their blossoming TV careers put at risk, for example. As for the FBI I believe they are balls to the wall too busy trying to sink our current rogue traitor POTUS to respond to my letter. I still plan to make an FOIA request with his name as my suspect is deceased.

But here's where something unexpected happens. While it doesn't provide the Zodiac's real name, it implicates someone else, whether truthfully or falsely, and that name leads logically to the real Zodiac. His name is clearly spelled out in the 13 symbol cipher, along with 3 others connected to the murders. It must have taken a great deal of time for the Z 13 to have been worked out, by the way. Not composed on the fly but perhaps over the course of many months. It is extremely clever- more so than the Z 340 which as it happens is kind of a snooze.

If interested check out my blog ZodiacKMAK.com. You can find my email address there if you want to send me all the yuge $$$ I'm expecting any day now. Cheers!

Nobody

11/4/2018 03:18:04 pm

Hi Carl, I am interested in your theory and will have a look at it in more depth.

I have noted a few very interesting ciphers made up of seemingly random words and phrases which look random on the surface but which, as a whole,could mean something. John Rose's discovery has always left me very intrigued and I cannot understand the expert cryptographers dismissing it as "random noise". It always seems like it was placed their deliberately, perhaps as a red herring, or maybe the Zodiac just thought it looked "cool". Also it matches with his other correspondence, so provided a kind of "watermark" to prove the cipher was from him and not a copycat. At least this is the way I am now considering John Rose's discovery - a "proof of identity" watermark.

I will check out your solution.

LOL at the $$$!! Agreed, nobody is ever going to get rich or famous from this cipher, but it would be nice to receive a donation. :-)

Nobody

11/4/2018 03:41:09 pm

Thanks, I just had a look. You could be on to something but I can see the experts finding a lot of faults with it, in its present format. The main problem being, there are still too many letters left non-decrypted, meaning the variables are far too high, so it cannot be called "solved" (in its present format).

Sorry to sound like an ass. I always try my best to inform people of the realities without upsetting their feelings, but for some people this can be impossible and I end up upsetting them anyway and they can get really personal and look for ways to verbally retaliate, which helps no-one.

I do however agree with your sentiments on the FBI and those who consider themselves experts in the field of cryptography. They, more often than not, show a complete lack of enthusiasm, or desire for that matter, to provide people with any kind of help or support. They prefer the field of cryptography to be their domain and they want to be the ultimate arbiters. Even an acknowledgement would be nice, but often that is too much to ask, unless you happen to get them on a rare "off" day and someone posts you a stock-standard "auto-response" letter from their computer: "Thank you for your input. As you should understand, we cannot discuss any details relating to this case but your input will be duly noted and placed on file for possible further consideration. Blah, blah, blah." such letters should generally be treated for what they are. A slap in the face for your efforts.

My advice is you should persist with filling in the blanks with this, as you could be on to something. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Richard

11/4/2018 03:30:10 pm

The problem with any solution to the 340 cipher Carl, is that there are probably tens of thousands of people who believe they have either solved the cipher or solved its puzzles. My guess is that you, I and the other 10,000 people all believe we have the correct answer and therefore by default everybody else's solution is wrong. It is human nature to be biased towards one's own theory or cipher.
It is the same with suspects, everybody thinks they have the correct one, but the odds suggests that a minimum of 99.999% will be wrong. I used to believe you can guage the validity of your solution by the response you get to it. It has since dawned on me that even if you had the correct solution it will probably never be recognized.
The FBI probably wouldn't recognize the solution if it smacked them in the bollocks, so I personally wouldn't waste my time.
We will always look at our own creations, suspects and solutions like our own children (even though I haven't got any), they are the most wonderful children in the world, they light up the room when they walk in and they would give you the shirt off their back, none of which is ever true. The same can be said of our Zodiac solutions. Just search the internet for the word "solved" next to Zodiac.
If everybody was really honest, the titles should read "I think I've solved the 340 cipher", not "340 cipher 100% solved".
Think of it this way Carl- if I told you your 340 cipher solution is wrong because I have the right solution and it differs to your solution, my guess is you would dismiss my solution as incorrect. Multiply this by 10,000 and you know why the FBI, law enforcement and the Zodiac community just roll their respective eyes. The Zodiac case is awash with theories, solutions and suspects. The only hope you, I or anybody else has, is hoping the cream rises to the top. But I wouldn't hold your breath. I always avoid stating "solved" when it comes to my cipher ideas, because quite frankly I'm not sure I have solved anything. I may strongly like an idea, but that is as far as I am prepared to go. I wish you good luck Carl, you will certainly need it.

Richard

11/4/2018 03:50:32 pm

My problem with the 340 cipher, is I actually don't believe it contains a complete message. At best maybe short bursts of text, akin to hidden messages. So, I'm probably the wrong person to convince with a more substantial message. If it does contain a full message, then I would require a message for the entire (or near entire message).
http://www.zodiackillerciphers.com/?p=144

Nobody

11/4/2018 03:51:12 pm

Yes Richard, You have hit a "hole in one" on outlining the problems. This cipher has become a case of "saturation overkill", which is why the cryptographers, including those in the FBI and elsewhere, have become jaded and, basically, sick to their back teeth with it. Often they will not even bother to consider a possible solution as they have already seen SO MANY already that they were unable to validate or endorse. Basically the problem is with the 340 cipher itself and its rather extreme degree of variables.

Yes, agreed, NEVER under any circumstances use the word "solved" Call it a "work file" or "an experiment" or something of that nature. NEVER under any circumstances call it a solution, or you risk losing people from the start. Whenever people say they have "solved" the 340, the first thing people think is "Oh have you now?" Then they roll their eyes and think "Here we go again!" Sorry to be blunt. That is just the way it is.

Richard

11/4/2018 03:52:05 pm

Correction: "entire cipher"

Richard

11/4/2018 03:57:33 pm

That is what I actually do when I search the internet. If I see the word "solved" I don't read it anymore. I just checked my archive- fortunately I haven't used the word solved once. Phew.

Nobody

11/4/2018 04:10:30 pm

Richard, my personal feeling is the Zodiac sent this cipher rather hastily because he felt LE had in some way obligated him to send it. His cipher may not have been finished. It may have been a "work in progress". Maybe the Zodiac was not feeling too good by this time, mentally, perhaps even physically. He felt hunted and backed into a corner. The only thing that seems to fly in the face of this is the way he meticulously drew each of the symbols. If he was just hastily throwing something out there, why did he spend so much time getting all those symbols looking nice and straight and neat? but he could have designed the cipher a long time before he actually sent it. It looks like an art work. He was like a school kid trying to get an "A" on his assignment. I am not sure what the answer really is, but maybe he sent off something that he considered "artistic" even though it was incomplete, or maybe it was just a single page of a much larger cipher that he intended to send at a later date, but for one reason or another he never got to send it? Maybe he had left San Francisco in a hurry, for example. Or maybe he was trying to work out something clever relating to that "paradise/slaves, by knife, by gun" thing, but he just couldn't get it right, or ran out of time? He just picked up one his existing ciphers and sent it as proof that he was still around and still taunting them? There are so many possible scenarios and we are at present not aware of any of the possibilities. Basically when it comes to the 340 we all tend to presume too much.

Richard

11/4/2018 04:32:15 pm

Because I believe the 340 a response to the October 22nd Marsh article, he had at least 16 days before mailing. Plenty of time to organize it neatly. But I agree with the sentiments of Drew, who I think stated that he likely just responded to the challenge as directed, to make the cipher "however complicated". Knowing a regular cipher would be cracked by professionals, he may have created one with a twist in the tail - literally, by placing 'Zodiac' as the bait on the 20th line. I don't know many people who think that wasn't there by design, and just accidentally fell out while encoding a normal message.
So, I do believe he created in advance, but I also believe the 13 symbol cipher was created simultaneously with the 340, like a bolt-on. The Zodiac couldn't throw both ciphers out together because the link may become obvious, using the signature Zodiac, so reserved it for the right moment in the months ahead. He also doesn't want to overkill by releasing both ciphers together. Of course, if my idea of the numeric connection doesn't float your boat (and I don't expect to convince everyone, if anyone), but again it just boils down to personal beliefs. We all have our own preferences.

Nobody

11/4/2018 06:28:07 pm

I have said it many times before Richard. If it seems too good to be true it probably is.

So I agree entirely about the word-like parts of the cipher. Either he was some kind of genius who encrypted these snippets into the cipher somehow, or he was just trying to impress us with false leads. The crossed out and corrected "K" is a possible transcription error, but it could have also be a red herring.

Or was he hinting at something that is hidden there in plain sight.

When we cast our eyes over it, what do we see? Word-like groupings of symbols that resemble "Posch Boy" (a reference to Toschi?), "God", "Zodiac", "FBI", "LOOOCK", "BOTOM", and the word-like "Here" at the start (or maybe "Herb"), and a backwards "BOOOO" which seems to relate to the Halloween card. There are symbols placed roughly mid-way which create a kind of quadrant effect. As I said before, perhaps it is more like a well-considered work of art than a real cipher?

The meticulous way it is written and balanced lends itself well to the idea of an abstract art work.

The only word-like bit that does not seem to connect to anything we know is the obscure "Tony". So was the name Tony relevant somehow? Or was he simply trying to tell us that he is an artist by trade?

I think art comes into it somehow. Well he did prove himself to be quite the budding artist in other communications. I would be willing to bet that he had at least some training as an artist or an interest in becoming one.

Carl Karas link

11/4/2018 04:49:04 pm

Hmmm could be some British Commonwealth bias going on here perhaps. Arrogant Americans! If it’s any comfort I grew up in Canada. Anyhoo. As a design professional in New York I had to defend my design ideas within an inch of my life sometimes. So you’re not going to easily convince me I’ve got it wrong. I wish you’d take the time to look at my proofs rather than dismiss the solution out of hand just because you don’t like my arrogance. I have to laugh at how seriously y’all considered John Rose’s solution. Which while interesting doesn’t come close to the content I’ve uncovered. Show me another solution with:
1) A convincing Cipher Key
2) A Cipher to plaintext Key
3) Rhyming, references to the Stine Murder, other signature phrases
4) All my worksheets, in order, showing every decision made and every false start.

Of course there is a body of numbing jumbo text. As all the experts had expected. But all the filler text was solve with substitution. It’s filler text. Not something I just left unsolved.

You could least give my solution the attention you gave John Rose’s, which though mildly interesting, is simply a tease...whether by Zodiac or not. Cheers! And happy Guy Fawkes Day! Remember...remember... the 5th of November! (J. Lennon)

Nobody

11/4/2018 06:10:34 pm

The only problem for me personally Carl, is that from what I can see you have left a lot of blank spaces that have not been decrypted.

So you can't really say it is solved when it is really only a third solved... because, that leaves too much in doubt for most people.

But don't give up.

As for arrogant people, they are everywhere. As Paul McCartney once wrote: "We all know that people are the same where ever you go. There is good and bad in everyone." etc.

Carl Krash link

11/5/2018 05:50:24 am

As I’ve stated above, everything, with the exception of a symbol or two was decrypted. It’s filler. Intentional filler. As anticipated by the FBI cryptographers and even by Oranchak. The bogus History Channel solution and others may have lead you to believe every symbols should lead to a meaningful plaintext. These bogus solutions have done more harm than good. Filler was used in the 408, much more in the 340

Richard

11/5/2018 02:07:54 am

Here is Thomas Horan's solution to the 340 "Gold at private lake. Napa whats the problem. Reynolds kill got help. Kurt will go ahead.
Zodiac people already know his Napa. People Ken Snook. Go pricks. Vallejo police dept. zodiac.Got real cop Napa involved. signed Zodiac Snook.

Thomas Horan believes this is the solution.
https://patriots4truth.org/2018/06/25/zodiac-killer-named-code-broken/

Michael Secherest released a book with a part solution, on a par with the above 'solution'.

The point of my argument above, is contact these people and tell them you don't believe their solutions are correct. I know the answers you will receive - and it won't be thank you for your input Carl, but we'll have to agree to disagree. It will be "go to hell, you are an ignorant bastard, and cannot see the obvious." Or,"the problem with you Zodiac hobbyists, is you simply want to continue the mystery forever." Do this for me Carl, and you will see exactly what I am saying.

Richard

11/5/2018 02:22:56 am

I have posted a reply on Thomas' page. Let us see what happens.

Nobody

11/5/2018 02:46:24 am

Here are some of the quality pen whippings I have received after asking innocent and pertinent questions to certain individuals.

"F*** off!"

"Why don't you get with the program, idiot!"

"Read every single word on this webpage and forum before you comment in future because you clearly don't have a f***ing clue!"

"If it is beyond your ability to understand it then that is your problem."

"You must be mentally retarded."

Here is my all time favorite.
"What have you ever done towards solving this case?"

Not to forget the other classic!
"You ask ME for proof yet YOU cannot prove ME wrong, so that means you know nothing and I must be right."

"Why are you even posting here?"

"Do you just want to cause disunity on our forum?"

"Your questions are negative and unhelpful!"

"Clearly by asking that question you must be a troll!"

"Are you still here?"

"My dog has more sense than you!"

"Get lost bone head!!"

I have many more.

Nobody

11/4/2018 08:38:39 pm

Richard, I recall I once sent you a few iterations of mine on the 340, in which I had used nothing more than the names of Dr Herbert Baumeister and his immediate family. Perhaps you could include one or two of the iterations in a later article to showcase the inherent dangers and pitfalls? I filled in about a third of the cipher from memory, perhaps more. Did I start a webpage claiming Herb Baumeister HAD to be the Zodiac because my cipher "solution" strongly suggested this? No, I did not, because I understood the problems and realized my "solution" was in all likelihood yet another "false positive". Plus I had not been able to fill in all the blanks, thus leaving too much in a grey area. I decided to retain those Herb Baumeister iterations as they provide a very good lesson on the dangers of reading too much into things that could actually be just the result of entirely random factors.

The only reason I admire John Roses's experiment is because 1) the result is centrally located and 2) it conforms very well with the 4 quadrants that this cipher naturally suggests and 3) it matches very well with a known motif that the killer had also provided. Basically it seems entirely natural. It does not seem overly forced. It could be random in nature, for sure, but because of the 3 reasons I just gave, I will continue to find it intriguing.

Nobody

11/5/2018 03:08:08 am

Umm, maybe not a good idea on second thoughts. Somebody might think there could be something to it and run away with it as a theory. That would be the last thing I would want to see happen. Ugh!

Richard

11/5/2018 01:09:13 am

I think I may avoid commenting on cipher solutions and suspects from here on in. They are touchy subjects for some reason.
The problem is when somebody has an idea they believe is definitely the answer to the 340 solution (which they are totally entitled to
believe), for some reason you are not allowed to disagree with the solution. Everybody must agree or else the retribution begins.
I thought John Rose's solution was a worthy effort too, but don't think it's the solution. Now I am biased towards Americans for being diplomatic and pointing out the pitfalls of claiming solutions to the 340 cipher. I applaud Carl for starting a website and putting out his firmly held beliefs and convictions regarding Zodiac and the ciphers. However, you have to expect, as I do, that not everybody in the world will agree with you. Otherwise you have to place a warning on your website that everybody must agree with you no matter what.
I have written many articles and proposed some theories on the ciphers that are in direct contradiction with your solutions Carl, and I suspect therefore that you disagree with my cipher ideas. That is absolutely fine - I am not going to get upset with people disagreeing with my ideas - I don't have all the answers and undoubtedly am not always correct, and I totally accept constructive arguments against my theories or points of discussion. If they do disagree I don't call them anti British or suggest the Americans are ganging up on me.
I just need to know one question; If nobody is allowed to disagree with your ideas or 340 solution then just say so, and we will all agree you have the correct answer. When you or I put out a 340 solution or idea that is diametrically opposed, then you have to believe I am wrong. That is absolutely fine, that is what constructive disagreement is all about. You are always welcome on my website Carl even if you disagree with every article or opinion I write.
Your solution to the 340 cipher makes my ideas on the 340 solution wrong. What is the problem with that.

Nobody

11/5/2018 02:10:43 am

I personally enjoyed this topic immensely and the way you have, to some extent, "proven the point".

One very easy way to make yourself instantly disliked and forever painted the villain in the world of Zodiac research is to disagree with some aspect of an individual or a group's suspect theory. It can even get you banned for life for some forums.

The other thing that will get you into trouble is when you attempt to advise people about the known pitfalls of promoting a singular theory or solution. Often they do not want to hear about it and will take your warnings as a veiled attempt at ridicule.

You are damned if you do and better off if you don't say anything.

The irony with many of the people who dislike constructive criticism or the possibility of alternative solutions and theories, is they often have no comments. A lack of commentary from others on any web site suggests that only positive feedback is welcome. I do know of a few YouTube members who become extremely nasty if anybody tries to present an alternative explanation. They not only delete or hide the negative comments, they also frequently ban anybody who makes a comment that they consider unfavorable. I have even heard of people being stalked across media platforms simply because somebody did not like a post.

I personally wonder if there is a kind of prestige factor that some people become obsessed with? There will never be millions of dollars awarded to whoever solves the cipher, nor accolades from the FBI nor Presidential awards nor Congressional Medals of Honor presented to whoever solves the 340 cipher. Nobody will be elevated to hero or heroine status. If a solution is ever found that appears to be valid beyond all reasonable doubt, after a few days of congratulations, it will quickly become yesterday's news. For five minutes of fame, is all the angst really worth it, when 99% or more of the human population could not give a stuff about the Zodiac or have any knowledge of his 340 cipher?

Sure we can all try to help to find the Zodiac, and one way to help may be to solve the cipher, presuming it actually does tell us something of value. But realistically, that is all any one of us can do. Try to help.

Richard

11/5/2018 02:49:30 am

The day you fear giving an honest opinion for fear of disapproval, is the day free speech dies

Carl Karas link

11/5/2018 05:36:12 am

I seem to have really pushed some buttons without intending to. Apologies to anyone I unwittingly offended. The Commonwealth comment was a joke! I wish I could have used an emoji.

I see where I’ve overstated my case. So I’ve removed the word ‘solved’ and thanks for the critique. At the risk of sounding toady-ish I’ve changed my headline to read something closer to what really was originally intended: ‘Ciphers and Suspects, inspired by the work of Zodiac Investigator Richard Grinnell’.

I don’t think there’s a single example where your analysis of the 340 and other ciphers hasn’t inspired me, Richard. I don’t even think I’d have gotten interested in trying to crack the 340 at all if it weren’t for your website. I do think you’ve all been bamboozled to some extent by Oranchak, whose attitude seems to be that if it can’t be solved by computer programs it can’t be solved. No one seems to want to sit down and do it the Harding way, the old school way, It was hard work, boring and depressing. If I hadn’t slogged through it the way I did I would never have started looking for the key. The problem is- Mrs Harding mostly- was a crazed genius who was able to solve the 408 without a key. This has led to everyone thinking that the 340 could be solved without one. Zodiac made certain the 340 could not be solved without a key. Even by the world most powerful computers. I am no genius but I was smart enough to see that this was Zodiac’s next Cipher ‘chess board’ move. He wanted it solved. But not so quickly -by some freak genius. He did not anticipate computer age biases.

I think from my own point of view it’s pretty arrogant for anyone to say ‘it can’t be solved’ without having searched for the key or giving a try at a straight substitution solve. Really ‘chaps my hide’ as we say here in Texas.

Richard

11/5/2018 07:32:04 am

I agree with your point on the experts Carl, that was the intention of the article.
"But here is the reality check. Even if you do achieve the seemingly insurmountable task of unequivocally solving the 340 cipher, then comes the next insurmountable hurdle - convincing people you have the correct solution. In a Zodiac community wearily grazing on skepticism and fueled by a heavy dose of déjà vu syndrome, your perfectly good solution will likely drift on down the river with barely a ripple from the esteemed adjudicators."

Thanks for the kind words Carl, I always appreciate your input here.
All I was trying to say, was several of us have put forward certain contradictory approaches to the 340 cipher and other codes, whether right or wrong- the problem being - is how to prove we have the correct one above all others. In other words, finding the solution is only the start. If you truly find the solution then the battle really begins. These computers are only as good as what is fed into them, so your solution or mine, can never be verified by them. Then it comes down to hurdling the statistics lobbed at your solution. I fear we may battle, but eventually lose the war. I believe this applies to every solution that doesn't rely on a conventional computer diet. Anyway, onwards we march. Cheers Carl.

Phew2

11/6/2018 08:59:25 am

"That is what I actually do when I search the internet. If I see the word "solved" I don't read it anymore. I just checked my archive- fortunately I haven't used the word solved once. Phew."

While you're at it, it wouldn't hurt to check for any colourised, doctored, advertently altered Zodiac Killer evidence that might make it to current/future investigators on the Web or **God forbid!** international tele shows with duped graphology experts, their pronouncements, and the like.

Nobody

11/6/2018 03:06:14 pm

Phew2, I agree with you. One of my pet "hates" is seeing those kinds of manipulated graphics and images. I particularly dislike the ones where people try to alter the sketch so it looks like their suspect, or vice versa, they select a photo on a certain angle that looks closest to the sketch, rather than show us a more complete set of photos. This happens all the time in Zodiac La-La-Land unfortunately. I am not sure how it can be prevented, but rest assured it will almost certainly continue to proliferate for as long as the Zodiac's identity remains uncertain.

One thing I am really looking forward to, presuming the DNA people ever get a good enough DNA sample that matches to several crime scenes, so they can be certain, is a phenotype of the suspect. These phenotypes are generally around 73% accurate and there are some good examples to be found if you google the subject.

I don't know about anyone else, but I would really like to see a reasonably accurate rendition of what this scumbag may have looked like! Of course phenotypes are unable to reveal such things as distortion due to accident or injury, hair style, facial hair, or the wearing of wigs, glasses etc. But they are able to provide a fairly accurate basic rendition of the person. This science has already proven its worth in at least solving one recent cold case.

Phenotyping could also potentially be used to rule out some people as suspects, for example if Paul Avery happened to handle or drip sweat on to on of the letters and his DNA was found.

Richard

11/6/2018 03:15:20 pm

Like the Albany letter on the History Channel I presume,

Carl Krash link

11/5/2018 05:22:11 pm

Correction: Harden, not Harding

Nobody

11/5/2018 02:33:13 pm

So the empty spaces are just "intentional filler"?

The problem with this should be self-evident, but how can you argue with someone who adamantly believes beyond all reasonable doubt that they have reached an understanding of what the Zodiac had intended, even though there could be countless other explanations that are currently unknown to us?

Getting back to my Herb Baumeister experiment, I could also say the same thing. "This is what the Zodiac intended. The bits left unsolved are just intentional filler. This filler is required because it provides the solution."

Aren't other people going to say "Well that does seem a little too convenient."

Put it another way, how can we explain what appears to be unexplained without resorting to positive stories?

A wise person once said: “Empathy and a huge imagination explain a lot of mysteries in the universe.”

A study by Woolley, Cornelius, and Lacy, 2011, illustrates this point very well.

"Imagine the following scenario: A man, let’s call him Walter, works hard at his job every day, making barely enough money to survive, but still finds time to volunteer countless hours at the local animal shelter. He clearly loves animals and is selfless in his dedication to their welfare. One day as he's leaving the animal shelter and walking home, Walter stumbles upon a pile of money on the sidewalk. There is no evidence of anyone around to whom it might belong.

"How might you explain this sort of event? Or consider another, with a not so happy ending: A man named Doug, over a number of years, stole small amounts of money from his company. He eventually amassed enough money to buy a fancy car. On the first day of driving this new car Doug gets into an accident and the car is totaled. His insurance company pays him out."

It was found that the explanations people provided were more often than not favorable stories with positive reinforcements and outcomes (e.g., Walter finds the money); versus all alternative or negative possibilities (Doug actually stole money and crashed his car).

This may be because people may not want to believe that negative or unexplained events can be caused by forces outside their control, or, in this case, outside the bounds of their own positively reinforced theories. They would rather believe that a person has caused the problems, rather than the problems being something outside of their own explanation.

Carl Krash link

11/5/2018 04:04:13 pm

Well I’ll let you decide for yourself:

Line 1: It interested me a ton, O I get ef on the fun

Line 2: A ton, a knife or a gun t/a/e/e/i Peggey from no

Line 3: Nine fon n/a/e/a/? MK RIP r/?/e/o/k/o/a/e gone are I

Line 4: o/t Tyre e/g/e/o/t/n OO i/u/t/e/a/o/a/r/n/g tyhre eye OO

Line 5: Before ?/o/e go so my thing d/g/n/y/e/?/t/n/e/n/n/g/-/o

5/25/18: It could be- Before Joe go indicating that it’s Joe (short for George) Karadanis. The backwards ‘J’ is only used once so there’s no way to test it.

Line 6: t/e/i/r/o/e/n/-/g/o/? ton t/f/a/e/e/r/o/r/n/u/a/n/t/r/r/n/f/?/a/t

Line 7: k/g/o/u/?/i/r/t/n/ e/g/a/e/r/r/m/e/i/e/e/o/m/d/?/?/ a/o/o/e/e/n/e/?/m

Line 8: a/a/t/p/n/?/k/n/o/b/a/o/r/o/ ?/m/e/o/o/?/e/?/r/e/e/s/n/o/ i/e/h/a/?/t

Line 9: o/a Fohoni Tonei y/?/y/u/e/o/t/o/e/a/y/e/n/ b/o/n/n/g/-/?/e

Line 10: – Reneor Pontyaoni – Nffi attornney euro

For the symbol to plaintext key (not to be confused with the Cipher Key) see the blog post- ‘Zodiac 340 Cipher: a Proposed Solution (with Patsy?)’

I would be interested in seeing your proposal and any documentation you might have

Nobody

11/5/2018 05:28:48 pm

On a personal level, and this is just an opinion, I do like the rhyming idea. If this could be more consistent and less obscure throughout the entirety of the text, it could be convincing.

But that's it from me. I was just trying to point out the pitfalls and hurdles, that Richard has already outlined.

It can be a very difficult thing, when someone presents a solution that they have clearly worked on for ages and steadfastly believe in, then they post it up and ask other people for input. I guess this is why you find so many blank spaces in the comments sections below cipher solutions on blogs and forums. Often, a well-intentioned reply becomes all too awkward because people are afraid that any kind of criticism could be deemed an insult to the intelligence of the original poster. I have seen and been involved in some very ugly slanging matches that have resulted simply because I have tried to appease the person by giving them my honest thoughts. I felt obliged to respond in a rational and reasonable way. But I have learnt my lesson! Often it is best to remain silent.

A quote from Bambi is perhaps the only relevant one that comes to mind: "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all." This could be paraphrased to read "If you cannot agree or add to my theory, in an entirely positive and supportive way, please do not say anything at all."

People should not be discouraged from trying to solve the 340 or the Zodiac case for that matter. But it pays to be aware of the many dangers and pitfalls that come with proposing solutions and theories online. That was really the only point I was making.

Dave

11/8/2018 01:40:45 pm

I'm sure there is some sort of message in the 340 cipher and no one has been able to figure it out because we don't see the simple trick to make it work.

For instance, most people have assumed it's one single message that reads left to right & top to bottom just like the 408 cipher. What if it's four separate messages, one in each quadrant (The center row and column are just separators that contains the phrase Paradice Slaves). The + sign in the center is the significant hint/key.
Top left reads; L-R Top down
Top right reads; R-L Top down
Bottom left reads; R-L Bottom up
Bottom right reads; L-R Bottom up

The last line could be gnikaeps - zodiacis and thus reads as follows "Zodiac is / speaking".

With all the possibilities and without knowing the true trick/code, again it's likely just a fool's errand but if we keep picking away some one might solve the puzzle one day.

11/8/2018 06:22:20 pm

Top notch comment Dave

Nobody

11/9/2018 01:10:35 am

I agree with you about the quadrant possibility, The problem Dave is that no matter what anyone comes up with, the cryptography people are going to find faults with it. A solution that you propose could, for instance, be construed as being far too cherry picked and uncertain. In other words, how could we ever be sure that was exactly what the Zodiac intended? I have come up with several quite readable possibilities but every time you show it to a cryptographer they find the same faults: it looks forced, why are you treating symbols as letters when symbols are not the same as letters?, looks like you just selected symbols to reach your conclusion etc. etc. It cannot be solved because the variability factor will always be too high. You could come up with a perfectly readable decryption but the variables will always cast doubt on the validity.

Nobody

11/9/2018 02:11:02 pm

What a lot of people don't seem to get with the 340 is it does not matter what methodology you use, or how sound your reasoning is, there will still be cryptographers who will pan your idea on the grounds that it is too variable.

One time I used the idea of the eyes peering through the tree on the Halloween card to find relevant symbols. I also wondered if this idea of peering through something was suggesting the cipher had to be held up to the light and interpreted in "see through". These are perfectly acceptable forms of encoding. I decrypted a single word from the symbols. I posted the result on a forum and nobody replied. It was of course too boring. I emailed it to a cryptographer and he replied that my methodology is far too subjective and how can we know if that is what the Zodiac intended? He also questioned the scale. How could I know the correct scale of the card and how it relates to the cipher? Of course I could not. Too much was in doubt.

There are just so many problems. I am certain that even if someone does, or already has, landed on the solution as it was intended by the Zodiac, it will just be counted as one of the many possible solutions in existence.

11/10/2018 03:49:57 pm

This z340 idea makes sense:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/zodiackillerfr/340-cipher-solution-t7316.html

Nobody

11/10/2018 04:35:16 pm

Yes BB, I find it very interesting.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/zodiackillerfr/340-cipher-solution-t7316-s170.html

The only problem with it is it doesn't work out in Dave's online tool. Once you get past the first line you get constant mismatches. You can try it yourself. It is impossible to get any further than the 3rd line.

http://www.oranchak.com/zodiac/webtoy/

So did he encrypt it using a method other than homophonic? If so, then the method of encryption must be determined before we can call this a valid solution. Otherwise it is just an interesting coincidence.

Nobody

11/10/2018 04:43:38 pm

But having said that, I personally do like the way the double symbols in the 340 consistently match the number of double letters from the section of the letter. This is something that even the best cryptographers in the world cannot ignore.

Nobody

11/10/2018 06:01:02 pm

Also, just to correct myself, Dave's online tool does not account for multiple substitutions. It just replaces one symbol with one letter and will not allow for other possible substitutions. So it is VERY limited in that respect.

Nobody

11/10/2018 05:57:35 pm

It really looks like the Zodiac did post the solution to his 408 cipher under the guise of "Concerned Citizen".

I have to hand it to Rubislaw. He has been right on the money with this one. He woke me from my slumber.

Harden solved it before the "Citizen" letter could make it through the system. It was perhaps much more newsworthy to have a humble school teacher take the credit than for LE to tell the press, "By the way, someone else, possibly the Zodiac, but we are not really sure, has also posted us the solution."

So it seems perfectly logical to presume the Zodiac also posted the solution to his 340 "back to back" in much the same way. It makes perfect sense, for sure. This time he disguised the solution as part of a highlighted passage in his letter.

Of course the cryptography people will never buy it... but they are like that. :-) And of course other people will demand a far more complex solution.

Good one BB! I can certainly see where you are coming from with this.

11/12/2018 10:23:24 am

About the Z340 section The Zodiac pointed out on page 3 of the Bus Bomb letter.
TomVoigt wrote:
On Nov. 8, 1969, the Zodiac mailed a greeting card containing the 340 cipher. The next day, he mailed the lengthy "bus bomb" letter. Why mailings on consecutive days?
a couple of weeks ago, our user "Haley25" posted a fascinating observation involving the section Zodiac outlined on page three of the bus bomb letter. Haley noticed that if you remove punctuation, the outlined section is exactly 340 characters.
Once I confirmed a few things about Haley's find, I looked for double symbols in the 340. I found that number matched the number of double letters from the outlined section of the letter.
Zodiac threatened to "do my thing" (aka kill people) if the outlined section of the bus bomb letter was not published. The only other two times he made that threat was over the 408 cipher and the 340 cipher. So, Zodiac treated the outlined portion of the letter the same way he treated his first two ciphers: Publish it or people will die.
I feel that Zodiac knew his 340 cipher would be published no matter what. If he put the outlined section of the letter in the cipher, he'd have double the chance of his message getting published. And if the newspaper refused to publish the outlined section, he'd simply need to call someone like Mel Belli and tip him off about the content of the code.
This information has been sent to Dan Olson at the FBI. I won't publish his comments unless I get permission.
If the 340 was a simple substitution cipher, it would have been solved by now IMHO. If this 340 idea is true, I believe the code was designed to be a clue that could be used if necessary. Turned out to not be necessary, but it made Zodiac look like a genius and keep authorities busy, so why spoil the game by telling us?

11/12/2018 10:50:37 am

double symbols in the 340... matched the number of double letters from the outlined section of the letter.

Therefor the method of encryption must be multiple substitutions - this thanks to user "Haley25"

Zodiac did post the solution to his 408 cipher under the guise of the"Concerned Citizen".

Zodiac did post the solution to his 340 cipher under the guise of the "bus bomb" letter.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/zodiackillerfr/340-cipher-solution-t7316-s170.html

Nobody

11/12/2018 03:38:51 pm

You are potentially 100% correct BB. As I said, the cryptography people will never buy it because they will say the homophonic substitutions are weighted with far too many variables... blah, blah, blah. Let's fact it, unless the solution landed in their lap from a super-psychotic computer with a feminine name like Caramel, they are not going to believe it.

They build a psychopathic computer but they cannot seem to get it through their heads that the Zodiac was also psychopathic, and as such, would hardly have followed their highly prescriptive rules of cryptography. Nor would he think the way a computer does. It is impossible to program a computer to think like a psychopath. All they really did was provide their computer with the kinds of words and grammar a psychopath might use. The computer itself with still thinking far too logically and precisely and prescriptively when it tries to formulate a solution.

When we consider the way the double symbols perfectly align with the double letters in the outlined section, that suggests a corresponding match for most reasonable and intelligent people. Of course there will always be those who will claim the Zodiac was "so smart and devious" that he designed his cipher to deliberately mirror that outlined section just to fool us. But whether he did or not is largely irrelevant. Occam's razor should still apply, i.e. what is the most logical and rational explanation based on the available evidence?

11/12/2018 05:51:04 pm

Carmel - Is where he lives. And it is also where he was born.
The computer Carmel is aptly named.
Maybe it does not want to go after what it sees as itself. "Suicides Grave"
"Zodiac buffs know well that the true obsessive is a fellow named
Gareth Sewell Penn" DOB 1-1-41

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Penn

184 days after CJB was murdered Nikki was Murdered
Nikki Alexandra Benedict dob. March 13, 1953 - dod. May 1, 1967

184 pc. California Law - Conspiracy

184. The coincidences are numerous. A=1,B=2,C=3...Z=26

1- Gareth Sewell Penn = 184 also (Gareth Sewell Penn has 16 letters + cross-hair symbol = 17 Characters).
2- In nuclear physics, 184 was believed to be a magic number.
3- In the Roman world 184 bc and 184 ad are for the Anno Domini calendar.
4- The atomic number 184 is an element called Unoctquadium.
5- 184 days to July 4, 1969, 13 stars and stripes (1+8+4 =13) (184 + 181 = 365).
6- 184 days from the Bates stabbing murder to the Benedict stabbing murder.
7- 184 days the letter sent October 13th 1969 to the Salem April 15th 1970 murder.
8- 184 / 8 = 23, 408 - 385 = 23 (340+32+13=385) 23 + 385 = 408 23 x 8 = 184
24(rows)x17(columns)=408 408 / 51 = 8 51 x 7 = 357 + 8 = 365
(Gareth Sewell Penn = 16 letters + cross-hair symbol = 17)
GSP wrote the book "17 Times" He discovered the radian connection.
17 degrees Is the declination for San Fransisco.
17times "K" (11th letter of alphabet) = 187(cop code for murder)
17times The greek number K = 20 = 340(cipher)
17times 24 (8+8+8) = 408(cipher)
17times 4(for the four ways he killed)=68, GSP=7+19+16=68
17+340+32+13+6(Zodiac has 6)=408 or 23+32+13+340=408

The Zodiac Killer Insight Series on YouTube is the first of this GSP 184 idea.
Rough but a good deal of info. He could use you Nobody to help him shore-up
and refine this amazing Idea of his. As we know it is going to take a group
effort to get this Zodiac. Whether it is one or two guys or one or two thousand.
We are going to have to swallow our pride and co-operate together. I think you
can find him there in Australia. Peace

Nobody

11/12/2018 06:54:03 pm

I have always found Penn interesting.

11/13/2018 02:58:12 pm

GSP=7+19+16=42 Z=26 Z for Zodiac 42+26=68

17 times 4 = 68 (4 = the four directions, the four ways he killed)
68 + 340 = 408
W=water
W=23 23+13+32+340=408
17= Gareth Sewell Penn 16 letters + the Zodiac cross-hair symbol = 17 Characters 24(rows)x17(columns)=408

Nobody

11/12/2018 06:52:46 pm

I have never actually "ran the numbers" for the multiple substitutions of the selected passage. But you have got me interested, so I will have a look.

The thing is, if Z was a psychopath, would he have cared about multiple substitutions? My guess is he would not have cared in the least. This whole "problem" of too much variability is really only a concern for pedantic cryptographers, who operate in the world of applied science and mathematical precision, not in the world of a deranged killer.

Nobody

11/13/2018 04:29:47 am

Okay so I put Haley25's solution on to a spreadsheet so I can compare each symbol with each letter side by side. Unfortunately whoever it was on that forum who claimed the double letters from the selected passage match with the double symbols must have been mistaken. The simple fact of the matter is they do not match.

The other problem is the key is far too variable. Just about every letter could stand for just about every symbol. So it does not look good at all on face value. However there are some things about the key that could be promising.

The only way this might be a valid solution is if the Zodiac had been using some sort of slide rule or cipher wheel of his own design. I will look into this possibility in more detail.

11/13/2018 12:00:24 pm

Gareth Sewell Penn DOB 01-01-1941

1+9+4+1+1+1=17 Q=17th letter of the alphabet

G7S19P16 7+1+9+1+6=24 17times24=408

This Penn is a mathematical genius

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIfhWW4hdZg

Gareth Penn on the Zodiac Killer - YouTube

Very rare clip of Gareth Penn
Listen to his monotone cadence

11/13/2018 12:30:29 pm

Gareth Penn calls hi theory "The Calculus of Evil"

Calculus is a particular method or system of calculation or reasoning.

11/13/2018 01:22:23 pm

Gareth Penn calls his theory "The Calculus of Evil"

11/13/2018 01:17:19 pm

www.californiabeaches.com/map/17-mile-drive/

Gareth Penn lives here - This may be where he became fixed
to the number 17 - Obsession over the number 17.
This 17-Mile Drive next to his house in Carmel
So obsessed he publishes the book "17 Times"
It is no-wonder he is "connected" to water.

Nobody

11/13/2018 01:24:08 pm

Well BB, if this is his cipher, i.e. the 340 as Haley has proposed, I would have to say he is not a genius. There is no reasoning behind why certain letters should be applied to certain symbols. It is all too random.

Nobody

11/13/2018 02:45:21 pm

Hurry up DNA!!!

11/13/2018 03:56:06 pm

True - I know you are not into this numerology stuff nobody but I am still curious what you think of this series on YouTube?

The Zodiac Killer Insight Series

Alex Lewis

11/20/2018 06:26:26 pm

. . . "I was leaving fake clues for police to run all over town with, as one mite say. . . I gave the cops some busy work to do to keep them happy. I enjoy needling the blue pigs."

Maybe He wrote the 340 to amuse himself watching 'His Public' get busy running around (in pointless circles) trying to solve his fake cipher? Maybe it was a .

"I enjoy needling the gullible public!"

Nobody

11/21/2018 05:00:09 am

Hi Alex,

I think a lot of people miss the point the Zodiac was making when he sent that cipher. He enclosed it in a joke card with the words: "This is the Zodiac speaking I though you would need a good laugh before you hear the bad news..." He thought we would need a good laugh. It reads like something the Riddler or Joker in Batman would have said.

As I see it, the 340 cipher is just that, a joke. I think the reason why people cannot solve it is they think it will be really deadly serious and go on about killing people and turning them into slaves etc. They think it will be a linguistic masterpiece of perfection. Others look for a name. With this cipher I think the Zodiac was just fooling and messing with our heads. The whole thing is perhaps just a crazy "little list" presented in a whimsical "off the cuff" way, from a man who was essentially sociopathic, and who saw humor in killing innocent people, and therefore was more than a bit fracked in the head.

KDress

5/1/2019 01:33:15 pm

Let's say hypothetically someone has solved the 340 cipher, 100% accurate. How much would the cipher key be worth?

Nobody

5/1/2019 05:05:27 pm

Nothing.

Grant Davis link

7/16/2020 08:26:47 pm

i've taken a crack at the zodiac 340, and no-one ever looks, but i think i've come pretty close. pls see www.zodiac340.com

THE 340 CIPHER-A FOOL'S ERRAND

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