Not signed in (Sign In)
This discussion has been inactive for longer than 5 days, and doesn't want to be resurrected.

London Zoo: Someone Cracked the ZODIAC Cipher?

Bottom of Page

1 to 4 of 4

  1.  
    •  
      CommentAuthorInternaut
    • CommentTimeJul 22nd 2011
     (10069.1)
    Apparently someone cracked the cipher from the Zodiac Killer;

    Starliper split his work into two sessions of 6 hours and 3 hours. When he was done, he had decoded the following text: KILL/SLF/DR/HELP/ME/KILL/MYSELF/GAS/CHAMBER/AEIOUR/DAYS/QUESTIONSABLE/EVERYY/WAKING/MOMENT/IM/ALIVE/MY/PRIDE/LOST/I/CANT/GO/ON/LIVING/IN/THIS/WAY/KILLING/PEOPLE/I/HAV/KILLD/SO/MANY/PEOPLE/CANT/HELP/MYSELF/IM/SO/ANGRY/I/COULD/DO/MY/THING/IM/ALONE/IN/THIS/WORLD/MY/WHOLE/LIFE/FUL/O/LIES/IM/UNABLE/TO/STOP/BY/THE/TIME/YOU/SOLVE/THIS/I/WILL/HAV/KILLD/ELEVEN/PEOPLE/PLEASE/HELP/ME/STOP/KILLING/PEOPLE/PLEASE/MY/NAME/IS/LEIGH/ALLEN/


    Link
    •  
      CommentAuthorLokiZero
    • CommentTimeJul 22nd 2011
     (10069.2)
    You broke the Internet.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJon Wake
    • CommentTimeJul 22nd 2011
     (10069.3)
    It's horseshit. The cracker just plugged in numbers to a Ceaser cipher until he got something he liked.
    • CommentAuthor256
    • CommentTimeJul 22nd 2011
     (10069.4)
    As with most news articles about anything remotely technical, it's pretty hard to get a handle on what's actually going on here. But there are a couple of things that stand out as sounding dubious:
    For the first few lines, the pattern remained constant, but it changed beyond that. He said he was able to figure out the non-patterned series that by finding “similarities in the numerical sequence.”
    a cryptographer, who, after looking over the solution, said that it appeared “not valid"
    “With a code that constantly changes a pattern ... you can’t attack it using brute force.

    I would say that the code has only really been cracked when you can take the plain text version (the "translation"), write down the reverse-engineered encryption method, then give it to a third party who doesn't know anything about the issue and have them re-cypher it into a duplicate of the original cyphertext. Notice that having a replica of the method that Zodiac used is a) crucial and b) not given here.

    That said, the translation above is seriously spooky.

1 to 4 of 4

  1.  

This discussion has been inactive for longer than 5 days, and doesn't want to be resurrected.