The Zodiac Ciphers – What do we know, and when do we stop trying to solve them?

Here is a video of my talk from the 2015 Cryptologic History Symposium held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab:

I had limited time for the talk, so I recorded a new bonus section at the end to go over some additional material about the ciphers. The talk is basically a snapshot of what we know about the unsolved Zodiac ciphers, and a way to rule out different ideas of how the 340 was constructed. I was in the “Crimes and Ciphers” panel, moderated by FBI historian John Fox. Also presenting in this panel was Dan Olson, the chief of the FBI’s Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU). He gave an interesting talk about the history and achievements of the CRRU. During his talk he played this short NBC news clip featuring Dan and the work of CRRU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROfjcaGwLgM.

German author Klaus Schmeh, who has written several books on encryption technology, also gave an interesting talk about unsolved ciphers from unsolved crimes. You can watch Klaus’ talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9hWLo8bJXw

The conference was a really enjoyable experience for anyone interested in the history of codemaking and codebreaking. I met many fascinating people, heard many interesting stories, and learned many new things. I posted some details of my experiences here: http://www.zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?p=42643#p42643

A similar meeting is coming up in Charlotte in Spring 2015: http://www.cryptosymposium.com/