"Codes and Ciphers" by John Laffin

[doranchak]

In John Laffin's 1964 book, "Codes and Ciphers", is this so-called "Zodiac Alphabet":

http://i.imgur.com/eIsjvgs.jpg

Graysmith mentions it in his book:



I never thought much of this connection. But then Seagull showed me a shot of the book's table of contents, which shows this:





That's the Skytale (Scytale) cipher, right next to the chapter about the Zodiac Alphabet. This is interesting because Mr. Lowe suggested the Scytale encipherment method could explain why we are seeing many periodic bigram repeats in the 340 character cryptogram (visualize them by clicking here). So this is another possible connection between Zodiac and Laffin book. Maybe he really did use one of the methods from Laffin's book, since it was published in 1964, the right time for Z to make use of it.

I scanned the book and offer it here solely for research purposes to try to figure out if Zodiac may have employed any of the techniques described therein:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx2ZxP ... sp=sharing

[Jarlve]

Thank you doranchak!

[Jarlve]

I read the skytale section.

The pencil hypothesis:

If you use a pencil (six sides) then you would do it in parts since a 340 letter message does not fit on a pencil. Then you can choose to rearrange the parts in a 17 by 20 grid, either by rows or columns. We don't know the number of parts or individual part length and we don't know if the parts were rearranged by rows or columns. So it would be interesting to generate all possibilities to see if any of them generate a period 15 or 19 peak. If not then we can rule out the pencil hypothesis.

The grid hypothesis:

He used a grid similar to what is shown in Laffin's book but he changed the dimensions to his fitting. Then we seem to be looking at columnar transposition. I find this a more plausible hypothesis.

About the book in general,

It is well written and to the point, one can become proficient in solving substitution ciphers after reading this book. I noticed that homophonic substitution is referred to as substitution with suppression of frequencies. I also recall Graysmith calling it just that so I wonder if that was the name it went by during that time? Also, if this book was perhaps the Zodiac's only resource then I find it hard to believe he derived the idea of homophonic substitution from it, there seems little emphasis towards it.

[Mr lowe]

thanks doranchak.. will need some time to get through it all properly.
some casual observations. page 22 the zodiac alphabet has the phrase "In Paradise" page 86 we have Zodiacs circle cross symbol. and in the start of the book "By the same author" we have jungle manhunt and murder on flight 354. I`m sure other zychronicities will be observed.
Jarlve I am not sure if we are thinking the same about how(if he did) construct a scytale. My thoughts would be wrap a blank tape around a 1" pipe or (whatever diameter). rule up a series of lines, write out your plaintext message in rows, then unravel and write the letters out which is now garbled into your grid then convert that message to symbols. its a simple thing to do.
zig-zag is also a method which works and gives us the 19s.
I am not sold on any substitution method. I will keep exploring these and some others to see if a simple technique of construction exists that brings the 19`s and 15`s into play

[Jarlve]

There's also a reference to an Arthur Lee in the book.

[Marclean]

Wow , very nice!!!

Someone must have noticed this, this stretch is at least curious:

"...sages were then branded on their backs.On recovery the suffering slave..."

https://books.google.com.br/books?id=TWLhAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=slave

Marcelo

[Paul_Averly]

I find it interesting that one suspects name produces the same pattern of 3 repeats using this method.

http://www.cryptool-online.org/index.ph ... 73&lang=en

ROSSMSULLIVAN

(10 turns) =

RVOASNSMSULLI

[Mr lowe]

I find it interesting that one suspects name produces the same pattern of 3 repeats using this method.

http://www.cryptool-online.org/index.ph ... 73&lang=en

ROSSMSULLIVAN

(10 turns) =

RVOASNSMSULLI

it would be interesting if it was perfect in its further actions.. the double L are not good.
wonder how many other names work into it..

[doranchak]

I find it interesting that one suspects name produces the same pattern of 3 repeats using this method.

http://www.cryptool-online.org/index.ph ... 73&lang=en

ROSSMSULLIVAN

(10 turns) =

RVOASNSMSULLI

it would be interesting if it was perfect in its further actions.. the double L are not good.
wonder how many other names work into it..

Very many. I ran a test and it's already found over 5 million names that produce similar patterns of 3 repeats in those positions. Here's a sample of the top 100,000:

http://zodiackillerciphers.com/scytale- ... sample.txt

[bmichelle]

Just with a quick glance, this book does appear as if Z could have referenced it. A lot of curious things in it---The mention of punced holes in paper as well as the stuff Mr Lowe speaks of......hard to believe they could all be coincidences. The Zodiac Alphabet is a bit confusing but I shall try to make a go of it. Hmmmm very cool.