Zodiac ciphers - Really unbreakable?

With the release of the Zodiac Movie there will be/is renewed interest in the Zodiac serial killer and the mysteries surrounding his unknown identity.

The Zodiac Killer is one of the great unsolved serial killer mysteries of all time, taking only second place to Jack the Ripper.

Even though police investigated over 2,500 potential suspects, the case was never officially solved. There were a few suspects that stood out, but the forensic technology of the times was not advanced enough to nail any one of them conclusively.
Source

He was even connected to the Manson family...

(The) Zodiac used to write letters to Newspapers, "boasting" about his murders and rubbing it in the police's faces... Some of the letters were accompanied by ciphers, which supposedly revealed his true identity. To this date only one cipher - the first he wrote - were cracked.

I find it hard to believe that no one is able to crack these ciphers.
Cracked Cipher - Part 1
340 Cipher - Unsolved
More Zodiac Letters and Ciphers

They were able to crack the Vigenere Cipher in the 19th century (Vigenere Cipher), during the second world war they were able to crack the most complex Japanese codes (World War 2) - and that were more than 30 years before the Zodiac ciphers...
These days hackers are able to crack software registration codes, email encryptions, ATM encryptions, etc. etc.
People are even able to "break the Bible code"...?!

And they're telling us that they're unable to crack the Zodiac cipher in our modern times? The first cipher was broken by a schoolteacher and his wive... These days the FBI has super computers available to do number crunching etc. Are these computers not good enough to crack the code? Did the Zodiac killer invent the ultimate encryption? The closest things to unbreakable ciphers are quantum cryptography - and the Zodiac couldn't possibly have had the necessary technology for such a cipher. In fact at first glance it looks like a simple transposition cipher.

Why can't they crack the code? Is there more to it than they're telling us? Is it just because they don't care to spend the manpower (computing power) on a "cold case"? Have the code been cracked, but they don't want us to know what it says? Or is the answer that the "ciphers" are nothing more than random letters the Zodiac used to confuse the police or waste their time?

A challenge to ATSers - can you crack one of his most simple (or rather shortest) ciphers?

"This is the Zodiac speaking. Have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is______"
The "My Name is..." cipher

Or is it one of many wild goose chases?

Maybe it has something to do with all those spelling errors in his letter, he spelt kid right the first time and second time it was cid? maybe his names CID ____ ____ or something

Originally posted by trIckz_R_fO_kIdz
Maybe it has something to do with all those spelling errors in his letter, he spelt kid right the first time and second time it was cid? maybe his names CID ____ ____ or something

True. If you read through his (normal) letters you'll see that the Zodiac was a terrible speller (maybe deliberately spelling some words wrong?). But if you look at the "cracked" ciphers (Cracked cipher 1, Cracked Cipher 2, cracked cipher 3) his spelling is much better than in his regular letters... Even so, bad spelling shouldn't stop a cipher from being cracked.

Why do you feel that the first letters is C/K I D?

Great topic I've wondered the same thing myself. One would think the NSA would be able to crack this during a smoke break. I've also wondered the same thing about the Beale Papers. Wait, I should start a topic on that! Anyways, love the topic and keep up the good work

[edit on 15-3-2007 by mooonhoxe]

While I can only go on what I got out of the movie, I thought they had implied that the main suspect intentionally mispelled words as a joke. His brother or his sister in law showed a letter that had christmas spelled christmass. She said he was playing with the word christ and mass. I wonder if the cartoonist who wrote the books ever came to any conclusions on those codes. If he thinks they were deliberately unbreakable etc.

One thing that makes the Zodiac ciphers so difficult to break is the lack of traffic. As a general rule, the more examples of a given code or cipher you have, the easier it becomes to analyze.

Another thing working against you when breaking the Zodiac messages is a lack of confirming events. The OP mentioned the US breaking the Japanese naval codes in World War 2, which points to a classic example of the 'confirming event'. Knowing (from the messages that had been broken) that the Japanese were planning something that targeted an objective "AF", and suspecting (from other message traffic and some good guesswork) that "AF" *might* be Midway Island, orders were sent for Midway to transmit in clear English that their water purification system was breaking down....a few days later, a message was broken that noted "AF short of fresh water"...thus confirming that AF = Midway. There doesn't seem to be any correlation between the Zodiac Killer's messages and his actual crimes.


It's not so much 'conspiracy' in this case as it is a lack of data.

Given the state of mind and "god complex" of the Zodiac killer, I would not be surprised if he picked out an extremely archaic name of a diety, or even went so far as to create one for himself.

When I was in the throes of my mental instability back in 2000, I wasn't running around killing anyone, but I was making intensive codes, cyphers, and word puzzles to encrypt my journals when I wrote in a manic phase.

My thoughts moved so quickly that even though I knew exactly what I was doing at the time, several days later I couldn't decypher or remember my own encoding.

Perhaps Zodiac wandered into the same metaphorical scenario?

*two cents*

[edit on 15-3-2007 by GENERAL EYES]

If you look at the way he/she has written in the letters, you will notice that some of those letters are fake. You will notice that the writing is with the wrong hand do to the slant of the script. Most likely there was a copy-cat writer but not a copy-cat killer.

First off, good thread.

I believe the 340 cipher nothing more than gibber. Why?

From a psychological standpoint, I bet the killer was devastated that his first ciphers were uncovered by a mere school teacher in I believe 2 days. I'm sure the killer hoped the police would fumble over them for at least a week if not more.

After these ciphers the killer was probably filled with rage and decided to create a bunk cipher. The killer would never give any true clues in a cipher anyways. (more on the guess my name one later)

People say that the mistake in the 340 cipher show that this is a real cipher and has a message that will be cracked. I think it is the opposite.

A methodical killer would never, ever release a complex cipher like this without showing perfection. He wants to prove he is smart. So why the mistake? To make people believe it holds a message that needs to be decoded.

The my name is... cipher is just a ploy to watch police forces squirm. He wants them to think they are so close. It is a perfect ploy to keep them agitated. I would say that it will never be cracked. If it were cracked it would never hold the true identity. It could hold a name, sure. But it would not be of the killers.

The 340 cipher will never be cracked nor does it contain any useful information.

Thats my opinion.

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer
One thing that makes the Zodiac ciphers so difficult to break is the lack of traffic. As a general rule, the more examples of a given code or cipher you have, the easier it becomes to analyze.
***
It's not so much 'conspiracy' in this case as it is a lack of data.

I understand what you're saying, but I'll have to disagree in this case. If you consider the first cipher (that was "cracked"). It was divided in three parts, and sent to three different newspapers on different dates with accompanying letters. Yet the schoolteacher was able to connect the three and crack it, even though the content had no reference to any "action" from the Zodiac killer. He just spoke about what he did and why he did "it". Thus the ciphers were easy enough to crack without any confirming events. Well, the first one(s) at least.

Originally posted by GENERAL EYES
Perhaps Zodiac wandered into the same metaphorical scenario?

Interesting enough, one of the theories why he stopped killing is that he suffered from a mental disorder during the time of the murders, but later recovered and thus stopped killing... So your suggestion supports this theory.

Originally posted by Crakeur
While I can only go on what I got out of the movie, I thought they had implied that the main suspect intentionally mispelled words as a joke. His brother or his sister in law showed a letter that had christmas spelled christmass. She said he was playing with the word christ and mass. I wonder if the cartoonist who wrote the books ever came to any conclusions on those codes. If he thinks they were deliberately unbreakable etc.

I haven't seen the movie, but from what I understand the movie isn't 100% factual. I however agree that he probably deliberately misspelled words. If he were intelligent enough to evade the police this long, he would probably be intelligent enough to spell.

Originally posted by mooonhoxe
I've also wondered the same thing about the Beale Papers.

I've never heard about these. Another mystery to look at... Is that a good or a bad thing?

Originally posted by AlphaAnuOmega
If you look at the way he/she has written in the letters, you will notice that some of those letters are fake. You will notice that the writing is with the wrong hand do to the slant of the script. Most likely there was a copy-cat writer but not a copy-cat killer.

Indeed. He would "invent" fake letters to make the cipher more complex. You'll note that he used all 26 letters of the alphabet, with additional characters, which is not unknown for a code, which would make this as much a cipher as a code.

The lettering/handwriting is a very complex part of the investigation. They were never able to pin the handwriting of the Zodiac 100% to any of the suspects. Interesting some of the suspects were ambidextrous, and another one changed his handwriting all the time.

The ciphers were confirmed to be real, seeing that they were accompanied by letters to the newspapers, which contained information about the murders the police did not release to the media. There were fake letters as well (probably the last "secret letter" saying that he was going to start the murders again).

Originally posted by Dulcimer
I believe the 340 cipher nothing more than gibber. Why?
...

Of course a very possible situation. It makes perfect sense. BUT a typical serial killer, very much so including the Zodiac killer, loves the media attention. Most serial killers deliberately leave clues (getting more and more bold as they get away with - well - murder) because they want to get caught. And they (especially the Zodiac) love to "play" with the police. Making fun of the fact that they can't catch him or solve simple clues.

Personally I agree with you and doubt that the "my name is" cipher actually holds his name. In the first cipher he says that he won't reveal his name because the police "want to stop him collecting slaves for the afterlife"...

On a side note... The "my name is" cipher contains 13 characters. 4 of the main suspects' names were 12 characters. Add a space and you get 13? The exceptions were Bruce Davis (10+1) and Arthur Leigh Allen (16+2). I wonder if the police specifically chose suspects with 12/13 characters in their name?


[edit on 16-3-2007 by Gemwolf]

I always wondered why he didn't chime in on the 340 cipher. If he wanted attention... why not drop a hint on how to solve it after it went unsolved for some time.

Perhaps if real, it did contain information that could lead to his capture.

As for choosing suspects based on the amount of characters in the cipher... who knows. It could happen.

This is what it looks like to me:


Given the zodiac's (and the main suspects) intentional use misspellings in his letters (and in the suspects postcards to his family), it's hard to tell what he might call himself, and if his name isn't also a code. Likely the name is an anagram, because simple substitution leaves us with the word I_TNS. Adding a vowel, it could be IATNS, an anagram of SATIN (or Satan misspelled). Maybe Stanli (stanley) or some other misspelled anagram of a name.

With a tiny cypher, like this one-liner, it is impossible to solve without any idea what the symbols are. There might be more than one letter for each symbol and without the codeword, it would be impossible to break. Like the cyphers they have on Subamarines: they have a random cypher with a code word, and without the code word the cypher is impossible to break. The only drawback to normal encryption is that you have to send the codeword to your friend along with the cypher. That's how alot of encrypted messages have been broken, the code breakers realized the first 5 symbols were the codeword, and used it to break the rest of the message.

[edit on 3/25/2007 by ViolatoR]

Despite the fact this case is looking inevitably doomed to the "unsolved" shelf, its reputation up their with Jack the Ripper will keep it immortal.

Ive got a hunch that the Zodiac is a female. whoever it is/was they are likely to have died, thus any hope of leaving a clue or message for the grave seems increasingly unlikely, as if they had in fact died then the message would have been found.

I haven't seen the movie, but from what I understand the movie isn't 100% factual.

From the reviews ive seen the movie is also quite a dissappointment, they have been so bad its even deterred me even bothering to try and get a copy.

[edit on 7-5-2007 by marcopolo]

Apparantly they have what they believe to be the Zodiac's DNA from one of the letters he sent, where they believe he licked the envelope to seal it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you determine the sex of an individual from a DNA sample? Either way, I'd bet the house that the Zodiac is in fact a man. Aside from the fact that profile fits that of a white male, there have been witnesses who survived (at least one) and heard a male voice and saw a male figure. There's also a sketch of the suspect from a survivor, I believe, and it is that of a male.

As for the movie... All of the reviews that I saw when it came out were making the movie out to be incredible. I don't think I saw anything lower than a B-. I usually ignore critics completely as they have disappointed me in the past and I think whether a movie is good or not is up to the individual, I went and saw the Zodiac movie with two friends. I've always had some interest in serial killers and the Zodiac killer in particular. That being said, the movie was wayyyyyy too long. I totally regret seeing it. If given the opportunity I could have easily shaved an hour off the movie of pointless scenes. It's a shame, too, because the movie started out with a bang (pun intended!), but was pretty much downhill from there.

But if you're a fan of the Zodiac or just have general interest in the field, I would still recommend renting it when it comes out on video. At least then you can watch it in parts or pause it to get something to eat and use the bathroom- a luxury I didn't have when I saw it in the theater! That aside, the acting was still good and it also shed some light on the story that I hadn't known beforehand. I know that writers and directors often take creative discretion with "true stories" and add things that aren't even true, so I still have to do some research on the subject to confirm/deny the things I saw in the film. I still hold a grudge against Oliver Stone for what he did to me with the JFK movie. There was so much incorrect information in that movie that was just added for the sake of dramatic effect. But as a child I believed it all to be true simply because they said it was "based on a true story". They should instead be forced to say "this movie has a few things in common with an actual event but most of it is made up for the sake of entertainment."

Originally posted by Rasputin13
Apparantly they have what they believe to be the Zodiac's DNA from one of the letters he sent, where they believe he licked the envelope to seal it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you determine the sex of an individual from a DNA sample? Either way, I'd bet the house that the Zodiac is in fact a man. Aside from the fact that profile fits that of a white male, there have been witnesses who survived (at least one) and heard a male voice and saw a male figure. There's also a sketch of the suspect from a survivor, I believe, and it is that of a male.

Indeed. From what I gather there has never been any doubt about his gender. This came from things he wrote in his letters (those which were not encrypted), eye witnesses, phone calls he made to the police and news agents, etc.

The DNA was submitted for testing in 2001/2 and cleared the main suspect Arthur Leigh Allen. It should be mentioned that only a partial genetic profile was created from the DNA samples. (The Zodiac DNA)

If the gender was indeed female, it would have been made clear by the DNA tests.

Excellent thread Gemwolf.
I have followed the Zodiac case for many years.
I read the book several different times and saw the newest film when it came out. IMO I do not believe they ever interviewed the Zodiac, nor had him as a suspect. Although Allen seemed a good candidate, I doubt it was him imo.
I have tried numerous times to crack the ciphers, as I have an interest in such things, to no avail. Hopefully someone will in future.

Heh, if you want a movie (at least, I thought it was good). Go watch Vous arrivez prés de chez vous (it's not a "real" movie, but a budget one, but it has some nice symbolism in it.).

As for the cipher, there's an argument in which is stated "If hackers can crack this or that and modern computer why can't they crack this?"

1.: Old and new encryptions are not the same.
Eg.: AES Encryption is not a simple "alphabet shift" cipher. And from there onwards it becomes even less ''old cipher-like''.

2.: (What other people have stated as well): There aren't enough resources NOR enough knowledge about the person, like said a few pages above, if I keep having plans on attacking a certain building, then a recurring word in my cipher may be identified as the name of that building.

3.: Technically it's possible to create a (near) uncrackable cipher.
How? Look at the enigma. The insane amount of possibilities when you don't know what the message might be, can create a dozen solutions that might come out as proper language, but not be the actual answer.

Now add to that a totally random cipher method (eg, just writing random scribbles rather than having a systematic method), people might think the scribbles might have some revelance, and try deciphering it using a million different scribbles, nevertheless, without knowing what I meant to write, it will be impossible to decipher my message.

Simply put, if you use a non mathemathics based method, or a very unusual one, it might impossible for anyone to ever crack it unless they have the *EXACT* same mindset as you.

Eg. cipher: writing down your message, then looking for your word (eg. FORGET)in the dictionary, taking the 5th letter (eg, E) of the definition of that word, and the 7th (eg, I), then going to the index for the 5th letter( the E), and replacing the word you had with the first word you find, starting with E, and containg I. (now let's assume that it was Either).

Now HOW in the heavens is anyone going to figure out that Either actually means Forget?

Edit reason: added (near) in statement 3.:

[edit on 9/5/07 by -0mega-]

So he gave a real cypher, then just to keep them very busy doing nothing he gave them false data that means nothing. Would be a real good way to waste their manpower.

This may be of interest to you I have been looking at the zodiac 340 cipher which in my opinion is impossible to crack on its own here’s how:

Look more closely at letter my name is letter sent 20th Apr 1970 there are 13 separate individual symbols in the cipher and three of the symbols are maybe alpha symbols this needs to worked out. There are three alpha buttons look at the post card dated 5th Oct 1970 there are three holes on their own this may be an anagram solution for the 13.

The three alpha buttons are ‘whatever buttons you can think up’ (quoted letter 26th Jul 1970) I think this is where the post card with holes may be needed.

13 symbols, 13 buttons, 13 holes, 13 murders according to the card.

The relevance to buttons is told in his letter 26th Jul 1970, it doesn’t make sense in reality, I don’t think he was meaning everyone should wear buttons or he will kill, he was referring to the cipher. Exactly half the letter refers to ‘buttons’ the rest is just irrelevant rubbish. By buttons he means variations of a cipher symbol, ones that look like the zodiac in the 340 and the 13.

13 Buttons:
Circle with cross, cross, circle, circle with verticle line, circle with horizontal, verticle line "l", horizontal -, circle with dot, 4 half filled circles, 1 filled. Thats 13

The card could be a key to how it all fits together but I am not sure about this but note the 13 on the card. What I am trying to say is the cipher on its own DOESN’T work. The 13 symbol cipher is the key, and is the hidden variable. In the letter ‘my name is’ notice how he asks if they have cracked the 340 then gives 13 symbols. These symbols are meant to replace the ’13 buttons’ in the cipher however there could be less. Look in the cipher there are exactly 13 buttons look at my sketch. Two different ‘buttons’ could resemble the same symbol so just because there are 13 ‘buttons doesn’t necessarily mean there are 13 different symbols it could just mean more repetitive symbols.

This is why only parts of the cipher have been cracked in the past and it appears fragmented its because the zodiac symbols or 'buttons' need to be replaced with the correct ones found in his my name is letter. Failure to "not wear any type of ' ' buttons I shall (on top of everything else) torture all 13 of my slaves"

Remember this cipher is impossible to crack accurately word for word on its own there are too many possibilities, he knew this. He wants someone to crack the cipher he worked hard on it, therefore giving consecutive clues and the solution in his subsequent letters in hope that it would eventually be cracked.
What do you think?


[edit on 17-10-2007 by matt160580]

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First of all why his name is the zodiac, the most possible is that all his cryptographs and stuff are related to the zodiac signs and we have to start from there....

[edit on 24-11-2007 by ren784]

[edit on 24-11-2007 by ren784]