Solved 340-character cipher (old version) - Revision history

Admin: Admin moved page Solved 340-character cipher to Solved 340-character cipher (old version) without leaving a redirect

2021-07-08T14:15:06Z

Admin moved page Solved 340-character cipher to Solved 340-character cipher (old version) without leaving a redirect

Admin: /* Thursday, December 3rd, 2020 */

2021-06-09T10:21:01Z

‎Thursday, December 3rd, 2020

Admin: /* Timeline of arriving at the solution (times reported are in Eastern time in the USA) */

2021-05-28T20:26:52Z

‎Timeline of arriving at the solution (times reported are in Eastern time in the USA)

Admin: /* Timeline of arriving at the solution (times reported are in Eastern time in the USA) */

2021-05-28T20:26:26Z

‎Timeline of arriving at the solution (times reported are in Eastern time in the USA)

Admin at 12:19, 18 December 2020

2020-12-18T12:19:24Z

Admin: /* Wednesday, January 16, 2019 */

2020-12-15T15:48:37Z

‎Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Admin: /* Wednesday, January 16, 2019 */

2020-12-15T15:43:34Z

‎Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Admin: /* Timeline of arriving at the solution (times reported are in Eastern time in the USA) */

2020-12-15T15:43:18Z

‎Timeline of arriving at the solution (times reported are in Eastern time in the USA)

Admin: /* Friday, December 11th 2020 */

2020-12-15T15:36:05Z

‎Friday, December 11th 2020

Admin: /* Friday, December 11th 2020 */

2020-12-15T15:35:24Z

‎Friday, December 11th 2020

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 * 03:25PM: Determined the transposition (decimation) steps that were performed for that cipher among Sam's batch.
 * 07:50PM: Sam provides details on the 9,9,1,19,2 enumeration, which is actually split into 4 vertical groups of size 9, 9, 1, and 1.  A decimation of 19,2 is applied to each group.
-* 09:36PM: I reported to Sam my solution to the first 9 lines, obtained by isolated those 9 lines, feeding them into AZdecrypt, but locking in cribs for some of the interesting phrases discovered earlier.  Appearance of phrase "THAT WASNT ME ON THE TV SHOW" locked this in as a solid lead towards a real solution.  Second 9 lines yielded from the same key have a relatively high score (compared to random plaintext or gibberish) but is somewhat garbled.  Also noticed the word DEATH appearing at the very end of the last line of the entire cipher, using same key as the one discovered for the first 9 lines.  Asked Sam for help to figure out the remaining 11 lines.
+* 09:36PM: I reported to Sam my solution to the first 9 lines, obtained by isolating those 9 lines, feeding them into AZdecrypt, but locking in cribs for some of the interesting phrases discovered earlier.  Appearance of phrase "THAT WASNT ME ON THE TV SHOW" locked this in as a solid lead towards a real solution.  Second 9 lines yielded from the same key have a relatively high score (compared to random plaintext or gibberish) but is somewhat garbled.  Also noticed the word DEATH appearing at the very end of the last line of the entire cipher, using same key as the one discovered for the first 9 lines.  Asked Sam for help to figure out the remaining 11 lines.
 * 10:04PM: Notified Jarl to also ask for his help.

@@ Line 72: / Line 72: @@
 === Wednesday, January 16, 2019 ===
 * 09:12AM: Sam Blake's first contact with me, via comment on [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hk__Hk5c9M my 2018 ACA presentation video on Youtube.]
-=== May 17th, 2020 ===
+=== Sunday, May 17th, 2020 ===
 * 07:03AM: Jarl posts a [http://zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=4805 transposition of the 340] which is extremely close to the correct final result.
 === Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 ===

@@ Line 72: / Line 72: @@
 === Wednesday, January 16, 2019 ===
 * 09:12AM: Sam Blake's first contact with me, via comment on [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hk__Hk5c9M my 2018 ACA presentation video on Youtube.]
+=== May 17th, 2020 ===
 === Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 ===
 * 04:14PM: Began running 655,088 ciphers, the cumulative collection of all cipher enumerations and decimations Sam Blake has sent me to date, through AZDecrypt v1.19 with default settings (except for loading jarlve's reddit 6-grams).  Had run many of them before, but this time I wanted to be more careful about sorting the results based on the cipher lengths (some manipulations remove parts of the cipher, which sometimes leads to azdecrypt reporting higher scores compared to ones for ciphers of length 340).

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 __FORCETOC__
 Zodiac, the serial killer who terrorized Northern California in the late 1960s, sent four ciphers to local newspapers. The first cipher was separated into three different parts and each part was sent to Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. The combination of all three parts formed a 408-letter cipher, which was decrypted one week after it was received. Zodiac also sent a 340-letter cipher, mailed on a card on November 8 1969, that [https://youtu.be/-1oQLPRE21o was recently solved.]
 == Articles and information about the 340 cipher ==

@@ Line 69: / Line 69: @@
 * 05:56PM: [http://www.zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?p=27087#p27087 Jarl's first post about availability of his new codebreaking software, AZdecrypt.]
 === Wednesday, January 16, 2019 ===
-* 09:12AM: Sam Blake's first contact with me, via comment on my 2018 ACA presentation video on Youtube.
+* 09:12AM: Sam Blake's first contact with me, via comment on [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hk__Hk5c9M my 2018 ACA presentation video on Youtube.]
 === Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020 ===

← Older revision	Revision as of 14:15, 8 July 2021
(No difference)

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 Talked to FBI National Press Office in the afternoon and was informed that final notifications will be completed by the end of the day and that the best time for the news release will be Friday.
 === Friday, December 11th 2020 ===
-* 06:00AM: Explainer video (Let's Crack Zodiac Episode 5) switched to Public.  I posted the news on many social media outlets and forums, and emailed the LCZ mailing list.
+* 06:00AM: [https://youtu.be/-1oQLPRE21o Explainer video (Let's Crack Zodiac Episode 5)] switched to Public.  I posted the news on many social media outlets and forums, and emailed the LCZ mailing list.
 * 01:03PM: First news report by SF Chronicle, [https://twitter.com/KevinChron/status/1337458070570508289 announced by long time Zodiac reporter Kevin Fagan]
 * 02:21PM: FBI San Francisco makes a public announcement of the solution [https://twitter.com/FBISanFrancisco/status/1337477701825925120 on their twitter account.]