

Reddit's possible solution to famous Zodiac cipher - jmtame
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/i6b1o/update_im_the_guy_who_took_3_days_off_of_work_in/c21azoo

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jgrahamc
In what sense is that a 'solution' to the cipher? It just looks like the sort
of pattern spotting that the human brain is good at and doesn't seem to
indicate any sort of systematic crack of Zodiac 340 at all. This sort of
reasoning is typical of people who 'crack' ciphers by coming up with all sorts
of complex explanations. I call this sort of 'crack' a 'Dan Brown'.

What's needed to crack Zodiac 340 is a systematic way in which The Zodiac
enciphered the message. His Zodiac 408 had a clear and simple pattern.

My recent posts on the matter:

[http://blog.jgc.org/2011/06/how-zodiac-enciphered-
zodiac-408...](http://blog.jgc.org/2011/06/how-zodiac-enciphered-
zodiac-408-cipher.html)

[http://blog.jgc.org/2011/06/identification-of-homophone-
sequ...](http://blog.jgc.org/2011/06/identification-of-homophone-
sequences.html)

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jmtame
I didn't recognize that the cipher could be split into four quadrants (with
the "+" symbol bisecting vertically and horizontally) before reading the
comment; maybe he's cycling through the symbols based on the quadrant they're
in? I noticed you wrote about substitution cipher, so maybe some relation to
that (rather than cycle sequentially)? There were some interesting comments
from the thread, although I agree with what you're saying that it's not
systematically cracked if Zodiac was following the method he used in the other
ciphers.

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jmtame
too late to edit my comment but an interesting analysis which does consider
the quadrants: [http://zodiackillersolved.blogspot.com/2008/12/340-cipher-
so...](http://zodiackillersolved.blogspot.com/2008/12/340-cipher-
solution.html)

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SocratesV
Anyone that does what he did certainly has some kind of mental health issue.

However how much of what supposedly he says in those messages is true?
Couldn't he be playing the role of someone with a thin grasp of reality just
to misguide and have fun with the police and profilers? It's probably the best
way to avoid being correctly profiled and possibly caught.

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JoeCortopassi
Why was this downvoted? It's a valid and inoffensive view point. Are we just
downvoting people we disagree with now?

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smackfu
Probably confusing the "he" in the comment as the solution-creator rather than
the Zodiac guy.

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SocratesV
If it was that, my apologies for not being clear the 'he' meant to be
referring to the so called Zodiac killer.

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pellias
Reminds me of the ultima runic alphabets:
<http://www.uo.com/archive/runic/runicbig.gif>

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callahad
That alphabet was actually used by humans long before it was used by the
Ultima games: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_alphabet>

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michael_dorfman
We have some gravestones in runes out here where I live (on the west coast of
Norway), roughly a thousand years old. It's a pretty cool sight.

