The History channel "solution"

[borkky]

The show "The Hunt for the Zodiac Killer" on history channel taunts with bold claims that they have solved the Z340.

In the final episode they will reveal their solution and it airs on tuesday I think. Their trailer etc however, hinted with enough material in order to start have a look.

Trailer: https://www.history.com/shows/the-hunt- ... is-cracked

From screengrabs I reconstructed the following



Rough transcription would be:

HERE IT IS I KILL BOTH
NIGHT AND DAY . I LIVE
BY THE GUN BAREL AIM
SO OUT TWT(?) SHING FOR G
AME TUR(?)O YER PIG IS M
IN I LOCK S ? NOW
DANGEROUS _____
HANDGE__YO_GAME
....

...

and towards the bottom they say they found a "name":
RICH
ER DMNI KSON

(name "richerd m nikson" as in "Richard Milhous Nixon", the president?)


So, they don't mention any methods used but by looking at the picture it should become clear.

This is just a pipe dream.

* They let some cipher letters remain unchanged in the cipher code. Other symbols are rotated or mirrored (message starts with "HERE" ... cipher starts with "HER". This is the only pattern in their solution)
* They squeeze in extra letters when needed, and ignore cipher text when it doesn't fit their goal (on line 8 they did this twice in order to create some plausible text)
* Symbols change meaning right and left, only to make the imagined words appear in the text (eg the + on row 5 & 6 is F and G. Why?)
* They are seriously just making shit up

[glurk]

* They are seriously just making shit up

Can I up-vote your comment. I really want to, LOL.

Yeah, they didn't solve the 340. I really wanted to like this show too. I don't blame any of the people here who are part of it.
All the cipher folks on the show are the real deal as well, but the producers of the series, well, it all comes back to them.

-glurk

[borkky]

* They are seriously just making shit up

Can I up-vote your comment. I really want to, LOL.

Yeah, they didn't solve the 340. I really wanted to like this show too. I don't blame any of the people here who are part of it.
All the cipher folks on the show are the real deal as well, but the producers of the series, well, it all comes back to them.

-glurk

Well said. Sorry if my first post came out mean.

There are professionals on the show, but the hosts & producers are not.

Their "proof" could be disproved even more, but I don't feel it makes sense to spend more time on this.

[Zresearch]

Ha, strangely enough I had just began completing the cipher with the "history channel key" right before you posted this.

This is what I came up with (below), but yours was quite a bit better.

download_kindlephoto-559745330.jpg

[Zresearch]

I also found this Picture from when I initially started working on the cipher...

download_kindlephoto-561270278.jpg

I have come an incredibly long way from when I first made the photo above...

I generally refuse to discuss my work with ciphers. (Not just the zodiac ciphers, but any ciphers I am working with) but if I had to discuss anything on the topic it would be:

working with Trithemius cipher techniques, as well as Vigenère cipher techniques.

Below is some text generated with a trithemius cipher:

I bo dgyahtui dgedgyjww ncwq mme ph bsz cha jlwq gc qhvsd ncep andf!

Fun stuff.

Regardless, I do not feel the z cipher has been cracked...

[MMSox]

After reading the episode name and description, they’ll look awfully stupid and/or like liars if they didn’t. They repeatedly say they cracked it.

[Quicktrader]

imo it's a non-solution, rubbish so to say..sometimes they use the + symbol as a 'G', sometimes as an 'F'. Same with the reverse p symbol..and those are amongst the most frequent homophones. Nothing there imo.

Such things are the reasons why I had chosen my profile pic..

Meanwhile finding 8-letter words in 11-symbol-strings, based on frequent overlapping trigrams (IoFBc) etc..

QT

[Paul_Averly]

Yeah, they didn't solve the 340. I really wanted to like this show too. I don't blame any of the people here who are part of it.
All the cipher folks on the show are the real deal as well, but the producers of the series, well, it all comes back to them.
-glurk

Totally agree, but that is why this is so upsetting. That level of talent, and they resort to a bogus solution?

*The episode has not aired, but I hope they don't promote a bogus solution...

[MMSox]

I believe they did indeed crack part of it. I’m quite surprised.

[4on4off]

wow,, what a disappointment.

1. Several cipher symbols deciphered to 2 letters of the alphabet, one even a question mark as the second. ( I was under the impression this characteristic was the biggest flag of them all when it comes to a forced solution).

2. A few symbols left blank. He must have had to have gone for a 3rd letter of the alphabet to force something because either of the 2 he used previously for those particular symbols would have made it even less appealing.

3. A few times a letter is placed in between the columns to make it seem like it made sense. (P)IG, CHANG(E), GAM(E).

4. The word IN is deciphered as NI, MY and MI.

I am assuming the forcing was getting too tough from the end of the partial presented so it was declared gibberish until the name down below which doesn't come out as it is deciphered unless 2 letters of the alphabet are used for some of the symbols.

Obviously I am no expert, don't post that much nor contribute much of anything to this site but I can see this is totally bogus and has attributes that many previous false solutions are dismantled for having.

I seriously can not believe Knight and Bauer are running with this as being even a proposed solution. I say that because I have a great amount of respect for the members of the code team and the work they have done over the years. This just baffles me.

I am willing to wager that not one single serious cipher person on this site thinks the proposed solution by Bauer is even remotely accurate. Dave included even though he was on the show.