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Let's Crack Zodiac - Episode 5 - The 340 Is Solved!
David Oranchak
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this video.David Oranchak's video last on his, Sam Blake's and Jarl Van Eycke's cracking of Cipher Z-340 last year : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQLPRE21o
⬐ newscluesYeah looking forward to seeing what he has to say about this!
it's explained by the crackers in a YouTube video. It's a pretty basic substitution encoding, except one letter of the alphabet can be encoded by a variety of symbols.It was difficult to solve because the cypher has three different sections, and they're intended to be read diagonally, but each section also has some additional minor ad hoc rules.
⬐ busyantIt would be interesting to know how they realized there were 3 different sections.In the video, he notes that 2 of the three sections have the same number of lines (10 iirc) and the 3rd section has only 2 lines.
I wonder if it was just trial and error that made them realize there were 3 sections or if there were "compositional" differences that made each section stand out from the others.
⬐ rmacThe code breakers said that discovering Z340 was three sections was "luck" but it's likely they were informed by previous zodiac antics:"On July 31, 1969, Zodiac sent his first cipher: the famous three-part cipher Z408. The Z408 was separated into three different parts..."
Bingo. Yes, the placement of "IS LIFE" was their guess and yours is so much better.They mention it at: https://youtu.be/-1oQLPRE21o?t=520
Plays for me, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQLPRE21o
PARADICE was spelled the same across all of his previous messages, so it's a really good indication that this cipher was correct. This YouTube gets into the details of how they cracked it:
⬐ sduenasIt's also interesting that PARADICE appears in this message twice. One time is spelled backwards (ECIDARAP). Probably he did this because how his first cipher was cracked withing hours/days.It was cracked by the wife of this high-school teacher. She thought the cipher would start with the word "I" and it would also contain words like "KILL". She found these words within the message so with the help of his husband, they guessed the key and the whole message.
I think Zodiac learned from his mistakes and decide to make it more complicated spelling it backwards, so the same symbols won't appear twice. He probably thought code-breakers would also be looking for important words he included on his earlier messages, such as "paradice" or "slave/s". Having a long sequence of symbols that appears twice and transposing them to his most known words could have led to break the code really fast.
David Oranchak who worked on cracking explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQLPRE21o
Crackers started a YouTube series to detail their efforts and solved it in 5 episodes (!!):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQLPRE21o&feature=youtu.be
⬐ rmrfstarCan you give a TLDR on the technique that worked? Was it something automated, or clever use of pad and paper?⬐ FnoordFTA:> Oranchak, a 46-year-old web designer who lives in Virginia, has been working on the Zodiac’s codes since 2006.
The YouTube video you linked (disclaimer: I did not watch it) appears to be by the very same author, David (Dave) Oranchak.
video from one of the guys talking about their work:
⬐ notadevThis is such an awesome accomplishment for the team and a great demo for the AZdecrypt program used to help decipher the message.⬐ ValueNullhttps://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1337480518074503170⬐ 1cvmaskThis puts to rest the Ted Cruz Zodiac Killer meme:⬐ AccujackAmazing work, and really shows how amateur cryptographers can contribute to detective work.I especially like the software tools involved.
⬐ abalajiI wonder if this will get us any closer to the famous short cipher that was mentioned in the video⬐ jonthepirateSolution clear text:I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME THAT WASNT ME ON THE TV SHOW WHICH BRINGS UP A POINT ABOUT ME I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER BECAUSE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADICE ALL THE SOONER BECAUSE I NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORK FOR ME WHERE EVERYONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE SO THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEATH I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE DEATH
⬐ ganoushoreillyThanks, I was skipping through pretty quickly to get the gist of it and read the text.⬐ zuzunI would consider moving the 'LIFE IS' before the last word to make it 'LIFE IS DEATH'.