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The Zodiac Killer’s unsolved 340 cypher is finally cracked after 51 years!

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member



The message
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
 

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
Some comments on Reddit are pointing out the crib'ed words make more sense on their own as the ending, rather than jumbled in:

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 WILL BE AN EASY ONE.

IN PARADICE DEATH IS LIFE
 

TheMan

Member
Some comments on Reddit are pointing out the crib'ed words make more sense on their own as the ending, rather than jumbled in:

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 WILL BE AN EASY ONE.

IN PARADICE DEATH IS LIFE

Man that's chilling. This kind of this usually doesn't get to me but this was written by a bone fide murderer who believed in this enough to end many lives, one by one, by his own hand
 

bender

What time is it?
40tJ.gif


Some comments on Reddit are pointing out the crib'ed words make more sense on their own as the ending, rather than jumbled in:

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 WILL BE AN EASY ONE.

IN PARADICE DEATH IS LIFE

This makes much more sense.
 

Cocksman

Member
That’s pretty awesome! too bad he didn’t leave any ( apparent) clues to his identity. The asshole is almost certainly dead but hopefully this is a breakthrough for law enforcement.
 

PSYGN

Member
Did he create some genius level of cyphering or is the difficulty inherent when making your own cypher after reading Cyphers for Dummies?
 
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Well done!

I always thought it would be another homophonic substitution cipher with a slight upgrade in difficulty from the 408. But there’s so many combinations of things you could do to make it hard to crack, and that’s before considering spelling / construction mistakes.
 
S

slugbahr

Unconfirmed Member

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Man that's chilling. This kind of this usually doesn't get to me but this was written by a bone fide murderer who believed in this enough to end many lives, one by one, by his own hand
It honestly sounds pathetic to me, like those stupid jihadists and their 40 virgins but even sadder. Ironically his idea of paradise is basically how I conceptualize hell, where you are stuck with anyone and anything you ever killed.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
The Paradice spelling mistake probably stumped code breakers for 50 of the years.

Amazingly, think how much time and money was spent on decrypting it over the past half century.
 
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Thurible

Member

It's nice when politicians are able to laugh at jokes about themselves, shows a healthy sense of humor. Reminds me of the "thanks Obama" joke a while back and Obama did a little skit on it.







On to the topic itself, can we learn anything new about the killer through this newly deciphered message? I know it's really just a malicious taunt, but does it reveal anything new?
 

Azzurri

Member
I don't understand how the killer made up his own CODE, I think that is more impressive than actually decripting it personally.
 
I don't understand how the killer made up his own CODE, I think that is more impressive than actually decripting it personally.

He didn’t. They are homophonic substitution ciphers which you can learn how to make with any “ABC basic of code breaking” books from the library. Which is probably exactly what he did.

Its simply a bunch of symbols to represent the letters of the alphabet. Multiple symbols for each letter to make it harder to crack.
 

Rasmagoric

Neo Member
Wow this was fascinating, i watched the 5 episodes in a row.
I don't think the killer expected them to take 51 years to solve it. Or it never was his plan to get caught...
 
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