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The Zodiac Killer's most uncrackable cipher has, at last, been solved
- neom 6y agoDavid Oranchak who worked on cracking explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQLPRE21o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQLPRE21o
- nailer 6y ago> You can see their full and fascinating methodology in the video below. > This content is blocked. Contact the site owner to fix the issue. Anyone have the video?
- mattstudio 6y agohttps://youtu.be/-1oQLPRE21o https://youtu.be/-1oQLPRE21o
- fernly 6y agoPlays for me, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQLPRE21o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQLPRE21o
- 1cvmask 6y agoGuess this meme will be buried for good then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz–Zodiac_Killer_meme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz–Zodiac_Killer_meme
- setpatchaddress 6y agoNah. Ted Cruz is still the most likely candidate.
- reitzensteinm 6y agoI am genuinely surprised I haven't seen an authentic looking long form troll video that methodically decodes the cipher and reveals at the finale text including "I am the soon to be born Ted Cruz".
- halturing 6y agooh you guys are soooo hilarious....you all belong at Home Depot!
- crispyporkbites 6y ago> That month, "is ted cruz the zodiac killer" was the second highest suggestion in Google's autocomplete for "is ted", but by April it was not in the autocomplete at all.[1][5] News.com.au writer Matthew Dunn suggested that Google was censoring the search term, showing evidence that it accounted for 89% of total searches when compared to other terms in the autocomplete How often does google censor autocomplete? Does apple do this on their keyboard as well?
- schoen 6y agoGoogle seemingly does this a lot (although I don't know if it's included in their transparency report or if anyone has tried to measure it -- both of which would be nice). You can report predictions as "inappropriate" (look at the lower right of a prediction list in a desktop browser) and you'll see something like Which predictions were inappropriate? [...] The predictions selected above are: Irrelevant Violence or gore Sexually explicit, vulgar, or profane Hateful against groups Sensitive or disparaging for individuals Dangerous or harmful activity Other If Google agrees with the complaint, the prediction could be removed regardless of the popularity of the underlying search.
- gowld 6y agoIt's censored in Google search, not keyboard.
- Anon4Now 6y agoHe tweeted out "uh oh" today at the news, so it might live on.
- EE84M3i 6y agohttps://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1337480518074503170 https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1337480518074503170
- KingMachiavelli 6y agoThe "340": 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 The spelling errors a bit interesting. The video is also very interesting.
- ausbah 6y agodid the misspellings make it harder to crack the code? or was this known from previous cracked ciphers?
- mikeyouse 6y agoPARADICE 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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQLPRE21o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQLPRE21o
- sduenas 6y agoIt'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.
- 6y ago
- anonymousDan 6y agoIs it just me or are there fewer serial killers these days?
- nscalf 6y agoIt could just be better policing. If you catch someone after they kill once or twice, they don’t get the chance to become a serial killer. But I haven’t looked up any stats on this.
- StavrosK 6y agoOr they know how to hide better. We've always only caught the stupid ones anyway.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> It could just be better policing. If it was “better policing”, you expect the clearance rate for actual homicides to have gone up as well as the identified serial killers to have gone down. Instead, the clearance rate has gone down, as well. “Worse policing” of murder would better explain both reduced clearance of homicides and reduced numbers of identified serial killers.
- oh_sigh 6y agoThere can be multiple factors at play. For example, future serial killers may be caught after one killing, but drug gang murders may go unsolved.
- fnord123 6y agoThere's also the mobile phone effect. The dopamine treadmill has stopped people from going out and murdering.
- cedilla 6y agoWorse policing also leads to more incorrect clearings. Who knows how many murders were incorrectly pinned on husbands or wives, or known petty criminals, or tramps? The same technology we use to find murderers can also exonerate people. We also tossed out a lot of bogus methods based on pseudo-science and learned a lot about the reliability of witnesses; and all the modern technology exposed many expert witnesses as charlatans.
- omega3 6y agoIt looks like the "is life" was added by mistake. If you remove it it reads much better. Also, "death" at the end looks out of place, is this his signature? It could also mean "life is death".
- syncerr 6y agoSeems like LIFE IS and DEATH should just be pulled out so the last section reads like: I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE LIFE IS DEATH
- meowface 6y agoAnother potential intended reading: "I am not afraid because I know that my new life will be an easy one. In paradise, death is life."
- monkeycantype 6y agothat's roughly what i cam here to post
- typenil 6y ago> Zodiac made a mistake while constructing his complex cipher Think I made the same mistake in a Cryptography course cipher exchange. Felt bad for my counterpart who was supposed to decrypt it. No one died, though, as far as I know.
- abellerose 6y ago> NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORK FOR ME WHERE EVERYONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE Anyone care to share where the idea of your victims in this life become slaves in the next came from? I'm curious about that and I remember that idea was also shared by one US killer that massacred at an elementary school.
- PicassoCTs 6y agoIts an ancient tribal myth, that enemiess you slay in this life, become your slaves in the afterlife? I can remember it being part of norse mythology in modern culture? https://www.brutenorse.com/blog/2018/4/17/an-old-norse-word-meaning-kill-was-the-zodiac-killer-into-vikings https://www.brutenorse.com/blog/2018/4/17/an-old-norse-word-...
- abellerose 6y agoThanks for the info. I'm a little confused why the killers would think their victims happen to be their enemies for the relationship towards norse mythology to be true? I could see the connection if there was a personal relationship between the killer and the victim, but not when the killers are targeting random strangers they know nothing about personally.
- Talanes 6y agoI'm sure "random strangers they know nothing about personally" made up a large portion of the Vikings enemies. I'd also wager that the battlefield scenario that the Viking belief was developed around would simply divide everyone into "allies" and "enemies." So a killer who sees himself as following that logic would apply the same black and white logic, their victims being enemies in some personal war.
- asveikau 6y agoI think it helps to consider that the killer is likely insane and therefore not applying the amount of logic you're giving it. I've also read some theories about Zodiac in particular that he might not have genuinely believed in that storyline either, that he was just taunting the public. Whether he believed it or not I guess we cannot know, but I would still say based on his actions he wasn't the most reasonable person on the planet.
- TwoBit 6y agoHow were the individual characters encoded?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- warent 6y agoit'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. https://youtu.be/-1oQLPRE21o https://youtu.be/-1oQLPRE21o
- busyant 6y agoIt 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.
- rmac 6y agoThe 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..."
- warent 6y agoKnowledge really is power. I remember the first time I saw the 340 it gave me an uncomfortable feeling nearing dread. What horrible secrets did those symbols hide? Turns out it's just some mad ramblings that are pretty underwhelming, and knowledge makes yet another boogeyman seem a bit smaller.
- meowface 6y agoYou're right, and it's ironic because I think the primary intention was to unnerve and horrify the public and to make people think some sort of unholy being was stealing souls to torment in the afterlife, like a demon, or the Anti-Christ. He was very narcissistic, like many serial killers, and in every letter he was trying to build a legend around himself. And unfortunately, the attempt was somewhat successful. It's maybe the most effective way to get very famous very quickly, especially if you elude capture for a long time. Something tells me there's a decent chance he may get identified one day. But if it ever happens, I suspect it'll be like this cipher solution: it'll take more decades, more toil, and more excruciating retreading of old ground until the right combination of advances in technology, dedication, and creativity finally uncovers a thread that quickly unravels. My absolute deepest respect and admiration go to the cipher crackers and to everyone else working on this and any other murder cold case; amateur, professional, civilian, or authority. Each individual knows they probably won't succeed, that probably no one will ever know who they are or what they did, that there's probably a major opportunity cost to what they're doing. With very few exceptions, they're doing it solely because it's the right thing. Keep doing what you do. You're our unsung heroes.
- Siira 6y agoSo ... knowledge wasn’t power after all?
- lr4444lr 6y agoIt's also disappointing though that it brings us no closer to uncovering his identity.
- sho 6y agoLet me just toss out a recommendation to the 2007 film Zodiac, which I really enjoyed. Directed by David Fincher (The Social Network). Great movie and a nice summation of events.
- aerovistae 6y agoFrightening and disturbing movie. It's very dark, very realistic. Unless you're very hardened against watching realistic depictions of death it will likely leave you clenching your fists and feeling tense. Similar to Spielberg's Munich. It is not a thriller or anything like that, it has none of the fantastical over-the-topness of a fictional story like Se7en-- it's a very cold depiction of truth. By the way if you liked this movie, plug for Bong Joon-Ho's Memories of Murder, which is terrific (and much less difficult to watch.)
- mav3rick 6y agoCan I just say I love all those movies you mentioned. And memories of murder was next on my list. I think I've found my movie twin ! Would you be open to recommend more ? I'd happily recommend you more noir or any other genre.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- aerovistae 6y agoOh I would definitely love to have any recommendations you'll give me, I feel like I've seen so many movies that it's hard to find good ones now. In the emotional vein of the movies discussed above: Nightcrawler is very very good and very unusual. Prisoners is very good though more ordinary in its plot and characters and I found that I forgot about it after a while and didn't realize I'd seen it until I was rewatching it... It's not especially tense but it's well written. Drive is an incredible noir thriller. Goodfellas is another one that has unforgettable moments that will force you to just clench your fists, even if in the end the story left me feeling a bit empty. I should probably throw out American History X too, which is a different sort of movie but still has that feeling of "oh my God did that just happen?"
- 02020202 6y agoso this killer misspelled plenty of words, some on purse, most not, and he came up with a cypher that wasn't broken for 5 decades, even with computers we had up to this day? you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that something doesn't add up.
- shadowprofile77 6y agoI think it's worth stating here pretty pointedly that despite what some comments below speculate about the killer's supposed low intelligence based on grammatical and spelling errors in the text of his messages, I very much doubt that anyone without a fairly strong level of cognitive capacity could have or even would have created such fairly complex ciphers (and without the aid of more widespread computing or knowledge of crypto as is the case today).
- nsonha 6y agoWhy is this new worthy? More inspiration for future serial killers? Your pseudo intellectual nonsense lives forever?
- kristopolous 6y agoIt's interesting how some basic permutations (not being a pure rectangle for the second chunk) and mistakes (paradice) likely inadvertantly made the text more robust against computerized cryptanalysis. I wonder if a number of previous efforts were just a few steps away but their computer program rejected it interpreting the mistakes as an incorrect guess
- yitchelle 6y agoIt is an amazing story. Also watched the video. Anyone give a layman's guide why the coded message was divided in 9, 9, 2 sections?