Craig Bauer’s solution to Z340
The finale of “The Hunt for the Zodiac Killer” features code team member Craig Bauer’s solution to Z340 which made quite a splash in Zodiac and crypto communities.
Much has been written about it on other sites already so I’ll direct you to them:
- Nick Pelling’s post
- Klaus Schmeh’s post
- Mike Morford’s Zodiac Killer forum
- Tom Voigt’s Zodiac Killer forum
- Reddit thread
Yesterday, Craig released a PowerPoint presentation with more details about his solution:
Click here to download (PowerPoint format)
Click here to download (PDF format)
Or, view the slides directly below:
Craig’s conclusion about his solution:
I believe the solution presented here is fundamentally correct. By this, I mean that in correcting errors made by Zodiac, I may have ended up with a couple of incorrect words, but I don’t believe I am off by more than that.
So, what do you think? Is Craig on the right track?
Craig Bauer is indeed on the right track.
Craig Bauer’s translation of the Z340 is accurate and almost complete, with one small exception.
He leaves the gunsight symbol and L after “ROS” in “DANGEROS” untranslated.
When I translated the gunsight symbol as “O” and the L simply translated as “L”, and the full stop is ignored, and you read left to right from the ‘R” in DANGEROS to the “N” in WONT”, this reveals “ROSOLIWON“, which is a deliberately misspelt joining of “ROS”(for Ross – Zodiac’s first name) in “DANGEROS” and “SOLIWON” for Sullivan (Zodiac’s surname).
Futhermore, in the last line of the Z408, I have found Zodiac’s misspelt first name “ROS” and his middle initial “M” followed by the first letter of his surname “S”.
To find out more, you can see my site at the link below:
https://zodiaciphername.com/
I highly doubt this is the solution. It’s ridiculous and almost nonsensical. Solving a cipher in this way can yield an infinite number of potential solutions, some of which will be gibberish while others will be fairly coherent statements. Not only is this a lazy approach, but a lot of it is just nonsense: choosing symbols to represent 2 characters at the same time in order to fit your “solution”, symbols representing more than one character such that it aligns with your “solution”, etc. Assuming the Zodiac is/was a relatively intelligent individual, I cannot imagine he would make such a cipher so ridiculously obvious to solve; I certainly do not accept the “Hidden in plain sight…” argument presented in the History Channel series. If anything at all, the Zodiac embedded multiple solutions where solutions like this were meant to be a red herring to prevent one from digging deeper as the solver would assume they/it that a solution has already been found. I hate to be so critical and would like to say that this was a good attempt, but because you’re apparently a professional I think constructive criticism is necessary. This is a lazy approach. You’re apparently a professional cryptologist, but such an approach suggests quite the opposite. Back to the drawing board.
I forgot to point out what I found most ridiculous about this. You dismissed the remaining portion of the cipher (lines 9-18) to be meaningless or misleading gibberish. I see this as a complete cop out and refusal to accept that your solution is incorrect. While it’s possible that part(s) of his/her ciphers is(are) nonsense so as to mislead the solver, I think that in this case you concluded that this is the case simply because the cipher no longer followed your approach.
I think there is too much guessing in the solution. I do not see how this solution can be tested for accuracy. I am not experienced with codes but have some other knowledge that has some bearing on cryptic writings. Guessing and not being able to replicate findings puts the reader in the position of accepting or not. A lot of things can be ‘decoded’ by filling in blanks with likely and sensible characters but is any of it accurate? If there is no pattern, how do we analyze the accuracy of the work discussed here?
Researchers theorize the Zodiac was upset because his first code was broken fairly easily, thus subsequent codes were much more difficult. What is suggested here is extremely easy though subjective. I do not see this as an increase in complexity by Zodiac. It is easy to see the partial words but guessing the blanks, IMO, is more likely to yield error rather than the actual intended message.
I think the most obvious and most likely solution is that the cipher is totally meaningless. It’s unsolvable because there never was a solution. Zodiac was obviously an arrogant, intellectually vain person. Creating the taunting letters and ciphers at all proves that. They weren’t necessary to his evil acts. He enjoyed showing off and the attention he received. It doubtlessly enraged him that a layman high school teacher and his wife cracked his first cipher virtually overnight. It seems a virtual certainty that his ego would demand he regain what he saw as the upper hand. The only way he could do it was to rig the game.
After decades of effort by ordinary people, brilliant professional cryptographers and artificial intelligence alike proving fruitless it seems far more likely than not that Zodiac’s later ciphers are nonsense meant only to feed his own diseased ego.
It is meaningless but solvable. There’s three Z’s, each of them starts word “ZODIAC”. The letter contains only ZODIAC or its anagrams with filling nonsense letters.
When I first read about the Zodiac Killer I was intrigued as I’m sure most people are and still are. As I sit here and watch this special on Amazon things are starting to formulate in my mind that I never thought about before. If you stand back and look at the BIG picture, I think these cryptos are BS. They don’t mean anything at all. There is no way that a person who can’t even spell the word “twitch” would be able to concoct something that is/has remained unbreakable for 50 years. I think his or her entire M.O. was just that. BS. Just some random symbols and numbers written down to fool the authorities and keep them guessing for what turns out to be forever. These will never be solved because there is no solution. Not even a super computer can break these codes. There is no way this person is/was that smart. It’s all a ruse. Well played, Zodiac, well played.
Dawei Divad, there were ciphers that took hundreds of years to solve. To call this one BS wouldn’t be accurate. A human brain is much more capable then a super computer. Some speculate that this cipher might be in Chinese. Have you ever tried any cipher at all? They look like gibberish. This cipher looks like gibberish, so it must be on the right track.
This solution looks lazy. Why would the Zodiac leave the first few letters un-touched? An two letters under just one Character? Nice try, but try again.