While the message had a few misspellings, the meaning of the message was clear. In cryptography terms, the word “KILL” served as the “crib,” a word that could be plugged into other parts of the message to determine other phrases.
ZODIAC KILLER CIPHER SOLVED SERIAL
Because the message came from a serial killer, they figured that the double letter “L” must be followed by the letter “I” creating the word “KILL”. In frequency analysis, the letter “L” is doubled most frequently in English. For example, there were a high number of double symbols (double letters) found in the ciphertext. After analyzing the text, they noticed certain symbols appeared more frequently than others. To decipher the Z408 cipher, Donald and Betty Harden essentially looked for common patterns, and plugged in letters that might fit into the ciphertext. This may seem tricky, but historically speaking, this cipher was far easier than any cryptanalyst would have expected (“Zodiac Killer Ciphers,” 2012). However, in a homophonic substitution cipher, more than one ciphertext letter could correspond to a plaintext letter. In a basic simple substitution cipher, each ciphertext letter corresponds to a plaintext letter. It was a homophonic simple substitution cipher. While Zodiac killer’s ciphers made him seem to be a genius, his Z408 cipher was not all that difficult to solve. The Z408 cipher consisted of random symbols corresponding to a plain text message.
ZODIAC KILLER CIPHER SOLVED CRACK
In 1969, two schoolteachers Donald and Bettye Harden managed to crack the Z408 cipher. After the Zodiac killer sent his 408-symbol cipher (Z408), he sent another message to the police stating that if they could solve that cipher “they will have me.” To understand what the Zodiac killer meant by this, we will have to first see how the message was deciphered. His other famous cipher letter contains a 340-character cipher, which still doesn’t have a definitive solution. Of the four ciphers letters he sent, one was a three-part coded message, sent to three different press companies, making a 408-symbol cipher. As cryptographers dug deeper into his letters, they were able to find out what drove the Zodiac killer to keep killing. His goal was to use the media to instill fear in Bay area citizens, and it worked. In other segments of his letters, he listed the names of his next victims, creating havoc amongst the Bay area. In the plain text part, he threatened newspapers to publish his letters or else he would kill more innocent people. The first part was usually written in plain text, while the other was in cipher text, in which he claimed contained his identity. Of the four ciphers, only one has actually been solved. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s the Zodiac killer sent four coded letters. Throughout his serial killings, the Zodiac killer would write letters to the Bay Area press in an attempt to brag and taunt his pursuing officers. While he claimed to be responsible for the killings of 37 people, investigators were only able to confirm only seven victims (five were murdered, two survived).
Known as the Zodiac killer, because of his messages signed with a zodiac symbol, he became one of the most infamous and terrifying killers in history. A lone and extremely elusive killer wandered the Bay Area streets at night. The 1960s of the Bay Area of California are often remembered as a time of love and social expansion, but there remains a terrible and unexplained stain on the otherwise illustrious history.
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