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Ancient Cryptography » Ancient Texts » Zodiac Killer » General info

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Aaron

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General info
« on: March 04, 2007, 08:57:50 PM »
Here is an interesting site on the topic: http://www.zodiackiller.com/

I've always been fascinated by unsolved mysteries; who knows where the serial killer is now or whether they are alive.

Stun90

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Re: General info
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2007, 08:24:42 PM »
I have wondered also if he is still alive. It is so very possible. Makes you wonder huh? Do you think that he shows some fascination of all this newfound publicity over the last couple of years? Wonder if he read any of the books written by Robert Graysmith or the countless others. People that go see the movie should keep in mind that it is just that, a movie and may or may not have some of Hollywood's brite lights in it. Another thing is to remember that this movie was based on Graysmith's books and other books by other authors should be read as well.
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"
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Aaron

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Re: General info
« Reply #2 on: March 06, 2007, 01:27:08 PM »
Yeah, and it also brings to mind the whole issue of fame... you can approach fame two different ways, in a good way or a bad way. Either way, if you are famous/infamous enough, you will be remembered for a very long time. There are countless people in history that would otherwise have gone unnoticed if it weren't for one single brutal act that they did.

Stun90

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Re: General info
« Reply #3 on: March 06, 2007, 09:02:24 PM »
How true, how true. Aaron, that is a really great zodiac site that you mentioned http://www.zodiackiller.com/ awesome site. That is now at the top of my list of sites. suggest it to any serous or casual Zodiac reader or to study the entire events. Maybe post some of the sites that I visit in the near future.
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"
- Albert Einstein

Stun90

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Re: General info
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2007, 07:49:46 AM »
The movie is just that, a movie. I have heard both good and bad reviews from people. It is not a typical serial killer movie. It is more like a cop chasing a bad guy movie. Still in all just remember that he was never caught and this will have a different type of ending than you cheering as you leave the theater. He has never been caught so far. Remember this. I reread the facts that I could find so I can be familiar with everything in the movie and to find out what is accurate and what is Hollywood hype. I feel that the movie kept true to the facts that were presented in Robert Graysmith's books. A great movie and just remember that this is one story that has yet been solved.
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"
- Albert Einstein

Aaron

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Re: General info
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2007, 11:43:25 AM »
Nice to hear they tried to keep the movie faithful to the actual facts... some serial killer movies take things way out of proportion and seem like they're just trying to profit off of others' misfortune.

Stun90

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Re: General info
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2007, 06:46:03 PM »
There may or may not have been some "Hollywood" put into this movie. And even though there are more facts than what Graysmith has written, they do not seem to cross the line and they do not blend in facts just to suit the movie. I believe that a person can learn from this movie. I wonder if the killer saw the movie or if he had read any of the facts that were reported and analyzed them to see how accurate they were.
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"
- Albert Einstein

Aaron

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Re: General info
« Reply #7 on: April 05, 2007, 07:04:50 PM »
Maybe the killer is the same as the director... ;)

Stun90

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Re: General info
« Reply #8 on: May 04, 2007, 07:49:00 PM »
Here is good reading. It may be partially the same as other readings but there is 40 chapters here and it appears to hold most of the details here all in one place.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/zodiac/river_1.html
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"
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Aaron

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Re: General info
« Reply #9 on: May 04, 2007, 11:53:08 PM »
Wow, impressive! I like how they have a vast collection of photos to go along with the explanations of what happened.

Don Crownover

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Re: General info
« Reply #10 on: November 18, 2007, 07:03:30 PM »
What kinds of things have others tried? In other words, what can I skip?  :) Or join with others to investigate.  The cipher solved by the teacher almost 40 years ago had  multiple symbols to represent each letter, used alternatingly. I looked for symbols used in a revolving manner. It seems like this cipher was almost designed to absolutely not look like that. In addition to looking right then down like English, I looked at down then left like Hebrew and other languages and did not see any patterns either. Since there were so many backwards letters, I even took a quick peek at the picture in the mirror. As expected, nothing so simple. Could there be some symbol that separates different cipher sections that are independent? The most logical one to me would be that Zodiac sign. Don

Aaron

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Re: General info
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2007, 07:49:04 PM »
I honestly don't know what's been tried, but I do know that there are a lot of groups on this particular cipher alone. Anything is fair game, really.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2007, 07:49:40 PM by Aaron »

tonybaloney

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Re: General info
« Reply #12 on: March 14, 2009, 10:00:32 AM »
Spent absolutely ages looking at this 340 cipher some time ago – I consider it to be a sequential homophonic cipher written through a grille and the rest filled in with nulls –



this explains the non randomness of the symbols and how it ends up with something vaguely similar to his “Zodiac speaking” in the last line – having removed his grill, noticing say the Z & A in the last line he fills in the gaps with nulls resembling his name – think the actual message is only perhaps a 100 letters long –

Whilst reading his other stuff to try and get into his way of thinking (by the way, “I have a little list” mines a couple of Professors on it, none of them will be missed” ) I think I solved the mystery of the ‘wide flange symbol’ – which appears on a Halloween card he sent which has on the front of it 'From your secret pal' -


 
Spooky

Aaron

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Re: General info
« Reply #13 on: March 14, 2009, 02:36:04 PM »
Nice catch! It does seem a bit odd though that some of his correspondence was on the childish side. As he implied, it's all "just a game" to him.

tonybaloney

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Re: General info
« Reply #14 on: April 11, 2010, 10:49:21 AM »
I suggest you compare it with Edgar Allen Poe’s cipher – there’s a good image here -

http://www.bokler.com/pix/eapoe_crypto_ltr_small.jpg

and Zodiacs 3 part cipher

When using multiple substitutes you need to use them equal amounts – the easiest way is to use them in alternation –
if you compare Poe and the Zodiac 3 part cipher both attempted to do this –
For example Poe had 8 substitutes for the plaintext ‘a’ if you track it through the cipher the following are its substitutes
in order of occurrence – (underlined letters = upside down; italicised = reversed)

I   G   B   T   e   d   y   e
    G   B   T   c   d   z   e
I   G   A   T   c   d   y   e
I       B   c   T   d   y b
I e G   B   T   c   d   y b e    
            T       d
I   G         a         y   e
        B   T   c   d b y   e
I   G

 In the 3 part cipher Zodiac had 4 substitutes for ‘a’ – (^ = triangle; ^. = triangle containing dot)
G   S   L   ^
G   S   L   ^
G   S   L   ^
G   L   S L ^.
G   S       ^
    S
G
G
           ^

Note how both sequences become chaotic towards the end caused presumably by errors creeping in and possibly the
thought by the composer that it no longer mattered.




Enciphering the same message with B & again with C (see above diag.)- I find C fits the bill to a T! – it explains not only the
quantity, the fact there are nearly as many counting backwards as well as forwards, the length of them and their
distribution – it looks exactly like the patterns in the 340.

A simply shows how one might tick them off to keep a record of which ones are already used so as to use equal
quantities to level out the frequencies.
B shows the system used for a ‘sequential or progressive homophonic’ cipher (the one Zodiac used for most of the
3 part cipher)
C shows one method for a ‘non sequential’ cipher

I had mistakenly thought C would be almost equivalent to a randomly generated one – not so – highlighted in yellow
are the ABAB type patterns that occur in the 408.

Note that in C each line is filled up randomly before moving on to the next line – this allows us to reconstruct the
possible alternate substitutes for the same letter, by looking for all the pairs (in any order) that run throughout the cipher

The following are the only ones that run the full length of the cipher and fit the above profile –


You might like to check the above sequences by computer – lacking the necessary programming skills I found them all by
hand (it took ages) so I might have missed a few etc.

The above is from an attempt I made on it some years ago – it may or may not be of some use.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2010, 11:51:33 AM by tonybaloney »

ACE Tech

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Re: General info
« Reply #15 on: May 05, 2018, 12:23:17 AM »
ClS0QR

 


anything