Zodiac Murder Ciphers

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2 total messages Started by Anthony M Lovell Sat, 20 Feb 1988 17:32

#4014

Author: Anthony M Lovell
Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1988 17:32

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I just found a numeric representation of "Zodiac Cipher #2" which is an
apparently still unsolved cipher related to a murder case in San
Francisco in the 1960's-70's.  I know next to nothing about this story.
  Apparently, there were other ciphers which were broken which detail
the crazed killer's desire to turn his victims into slaves (why not?)
Can anyone out there direct me to some literature or provide details on
this story?  I spoke briefly with Frederick Chesson, who had broken one
of the other ciphers.  The type of this 2nd cipher appears to be a weak 
homophonic substitution of 340 character length.

Thanks,

amlovell@phoenix.princeton.edu

-- 
amlovell@phoenix.princeton.edu

Re: Zodiac Murder Ciphers

#4016

Author: Doug Gwyn
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1988 12:02

21 lines
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In article <1783@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> amlovell@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Anthony M Lovell) writes:
>I just found a numeric representation of "Zodiac Cipher #2" which is an
>apparently still unsolved cipher related to a murder case in San
>Francisco in the 1960's-70's.  I know next to nothing about this story.
>  Apparently, there were other ciphers which were broken which detail
>the crazed killer's desire to turn his victims into slaves (why not?)
>Can anyone out there direct me to some literature or provide details on
>this story?  I spoke briefly with Frederick Chesson, who had broken one
>of the other ciphers.  The type of this 2nd cipher appears to be a weak 
>homophonic substitution of 340 character length.

There is a mass-market paperback out, "Zodiac" by Robert Graysmith,
that contains details of several cryptograms and the author's
purported decryption of the 340-character message.  According to
this work, each plaintext word was (apparently randomly) transposed
before being homophonically enciphered.  Some members of the ACA
agreed that the decryption was valid, but it doesn't make much
more sense to me than the purported Bacon messages in Shakespeare's
plays.  (p.243 in my copy of the paperback)  I don't know if that's
because the Zodiac killer was crazy or because the decryption is
incorrect.

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