Posted on 01/26/2022 6:23:39 AM PST by Red Badger
James Felton By James Felton 28 DEC 2021, 10:34 The FBI have confirmed that a group of codebreakers have managed to crack the infamous 340 cipher used by the Zodiac Killer over 50 years ago.
In the late 1960s, heading into the early 1970s, a serial killer going by the pseudonym "Zodiac" murdered at least five people in California. During his spree, the killer sent taunting messages to the press written through a cipher, where letters are substituted for different letters or numbers (or in the case of the Zodiac killer, a series of symbols).
The first letters were sent to three papers in the Bay Area, each containing a different part of the cipher. The papers printed the ciphers (or cryptograms) as Zodiac threatened to kill again if his instructions weren't followed.
The cipher, which was simpler than later efforts, was solved a week later by hand on August 8, 1969, by Donald Gene and Bettye June Harden. It read:
"I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL OF ALL TO KILL SOMETHING GIVES ME THE MOST THRILLING EXPERENCE IT IS EVEN BETTER THAN GETTING YOUR ROCKS OFF WITH A GIRL THE BEST PART OF IT IS THAT WHEN I DIE I WILL BE REBORN IN PARADICE AND ALL THE I HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME BECAUSE YOU WILL TRY TO SLOW DOWN OR STOP MY COLLECTING OF SLAVES FOR MY AFTERLIFE EBEORIETEMETHHPITI".
Based on this, it's pretty incredible that he was able to come up with a cypher complicated enough to fool the FBI for years but couldn't put the effort in to give his spelling a quick double-check, or maybe ask a friend to: "look, try not to read too much into the content but can you have a quick check that my grammar's ok".
The letter contained no real clues, other than that the killer had some fairly odd delusions going on, needed to work on his spelling, and may have been inspired by The Most Dangerous Game, a movie about a man who is hunted by an aristocrat for kicks.
After the first message, the killer's ciphers became more complicated. One, which contains 340 characters, has managed to elude decryption for 51 years.
The 340 cipher. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. A team of codebreakers decided to try and crack the code specifically because they knew it would be a challenge.
David Oranchak, Sam Blake, and Jarl Van Eycke used software to help them break the cipher, first by finding the many possible reading directions that could be used if the cipher was transpositional. By sheer luck, Oranchak found that one solution for how the cipher could be transposed revealed fragments of messages, including "hope you are," "trying to catch me" and "or the gas chamber".
This gave them clues that the message wasn't transcribed in one big block as it was presented, but instead was broken into three smaller blocks of text made up of nine lines, followed by nine lines, followed by a final two.
By starting in the top left hand corner, then moving down one line and across two spaces to get the next letter, a key which could be translated into letters and then words emerged. The letter "B" for instance, was represented by "□7", "c" by a simple "9" and "A" by a whole load of symbols unavailable on a keyboard. You can see these neatly shown in the video released by the team below.
VIDEO AT LINK.................
Through use of this method, and some slight adjustments by ignoring a few words that stood out before transposing the text, a message was revealed:
I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME THAT WASNT ME ON THE TV SHOW WHICH BRINGS UP A POINT ABOUT ME I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER BECAUSE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADICE ALL THE SOONER BECAUSE I NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORK FOR ME WHERE EVERYONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE SO THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEATH I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE DEATH
"Of all the things that stood out was the line 'that wasn't me on the TV show'," Oranchak explained in the video. "At this point I jumped out of my chair because I knew the cipher was received on November 8, 1969, which is about two weeks after someone calling themselves Zodiac called into a TV talk show hosted by Jim Dunbar. While the caller was on the air, he said 'I need help, I'm sick, I don't want to go to the gas chamber.'"
This for Oranchak made the solution seem real, as it fit with the events around the time it was received. The rest of the message also seemed quite in character for the Zodiac Killer.
The team submitted their solution to the FBI, who have since confirmed the solution.
"The FBI is aware that a cipher attributed to the Zodiac Killer was recently solved by private citizens," the FBI said in a statement, adding that the Zodiac Killer is still being investigated, and not solved as some claimed in October.
"The Zodiac Killer remains an ongoing investigation for the FBI San Francisco division and local enforcement partners. Due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, and out of respect for the victims and their families, we will not be providing further comment at this time."
The team behind the decryption add that they're disappointed that the cipher didn't contain any information (that they've found so far) that could be used to identify the killer, just "more of the attention-seeking garbage" from Zodiac.
"The very end doesn't flow quite right yet," Oranchak adds. "But maybe someone can figure out how it's supposed to read."
Hodel. I agree,
And pathologists are (probably) the most sociopathic personality among medical doctors.
And, it seems like creating/solving complicated puzzles would be something a pathologist would enjoy.
But I am open to alternative ideas (unlike the FiBbIes)
Actually private citizens did most of the Zodiac code breaking over the years. The CIA gave it a shot on a few messages, but it wasn’t a priority and they didn’t come up with anything.
sounds like he was reading his Koran
Did the geniuses ever consider he misspelled words, used poor grammar or syntax to AVOID easy detection or solutions of the cypher. That he might have done that on purpose.
The use of non keyboard characters is the real clue. It shows that he KNEW that eventually someone would use computers to analyze the messages and if you can’t enter it on a computer keyboard then those trying to solve the cypher would be in a quandary.
An example of part of the problem is that the placement of a character in a line or changing the shape subtly to point in a direction could be part of his cypher.
I hope he’s rotting in hell and nobody knows or should know his pathetic name. F$&k him, I only wish he suffered before he dies. The victims are the ones that should be remembered. So sad.
One of the reasons for 133+speak and lolspeak is to confound the keyword sniffers.
# Finally the FBI did something right, eventually.
Uh no. Even with all of the money they’ve grifted over the years, they didn’t solve this. It was solved by private citizens on a lark.
The FBI is useless
I used to play duplicate bridge with Don Hardin, the original code cracker. My wife had him as a Social Studies teacher. He told me that he figured the Zodiak had an ego so he focused on “I” and went from there.
He was correct................
“FJB”
I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN DRINKING YOUR OVALTINE I AM NOT SCARED OF OVALTINE EVEN THOUGH I AM ALLERGIC TO DAIRY AND I KNOW I WILL HAVE ALL THE OVALTINE I WANT IN PARADISE AND LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE WILL BE MY FRIEND
Exactly. And one of the details that really helped Britain’s World War Two Codebreakers was that every message ended with “Heil Hitler.”
Hehe. See what you did ther.
In other words, he wasn't a Free Republic spell nazi........
P.S. I didn't notice it until someone else pointed it out, but it wasn't until after he Freep-Mailed me that I actually saw my error because he was more specific in the Freep-Mail. 🙂
As someone who mistyped his dang handle close to 20 years ago and never changed it, I'm the last guy to start throwing stones in glass houses :)
No, I typed my name right then. It's just the name I was born with so long ago, even though there was never any visible evidence that any part of me is or was long. That includes my memory anymore, except that I can remember things from long ago easier than I can remember things things that happened more recently. 😋
Though I must admit that I do not remember any of this. Perhaps it was the substances I abused, or it's just not me:
Robert DeLong - Global Concepts
I don't remember if I made lots of money or just wasted it all frivolously? Though I do kind of remember a lot of frivolous spending in my younger days. It certainly could have been the substances I abused if I remember correctly. 😋
Since I have been here 20+ years I thought you were talking about my handle. 😋
I thought you were just adding a creative twist to make it unique. 🙂
Yeah, that was stupid of you. 😋
Thanks Red Badger.
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