So you’re saying that this was the last one, as long as you ignore the ones that came after it?
Sure, seems legit.
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I want to see the Indiana Jones puzzle quest moment where he properly translates the writing that points the way to the sacred treasure, except the ancient person who wrote it messed up.
This reminds me of how I lost points on a Latin translation in school because Caesar apparently used improper grammar when he wrote The Gallic Wars.
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Sure, 13 characters is exactly the same as 340.
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So it’s harder, so it doesn’t count. Gotcha.
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That is one creepy-ass note he/she/it wrote.
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There were only ever 4 cryptograms.
The original 3 part cryptogram sent to 3 different newspaper was cracked at the time. Excepting 18 characters at the end of the 3rd page. Many people think this is garbage text intended to muddy things up.
This one is the only other code of significant length.
The other two are a 32 character section of a bomb threat letter. And a 13 character line from the opening of another of the cards. Both got a proposed solution last year. I don’t recall a 3rd party confirmation, but neither seems to have been disproven either.
So maybe there are more that aren’t decoded. If the solutions to the short ones aren’t valid or those 18 characters aren’t garbage.
All sorts of awful flashbacks from that movie.
I think this lunatic meant “a pair of die”. Easy mistake.
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That’s a piece of cake compared to deciphering my 84-year-old Dad’s shopping list.
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Yeah, the spelling errors must make it so much harder to decipher. I wonder how professional cryptographers deal with errors in the original, unencrypted text.
As a translator, I can definitely attest to the issues that errors like this present in translation (and this is one area in which I can safely say that no AI will ever be able to surpass my ability), but it must be a nightmare in cryptography…
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If I was a psychopathic mass-murderer I would totally write some completely made up and meaningless “cryptograms” just to fuck with people.
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“…and that’s how the Zodiac Killer was found and brought to justice!”
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Related: Why isn’t SFPD re-examining DNA evidence?
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They are. Sort of. That’s an older article, and it seems to be about the first DNA evidence push in the early 00’s, and weirdly doesn’t include anything that had happened in the 11 years between that and the article’s publication.
Samples collected and tested at that time were apparently not usable. California was in a budget crisis during the period where that took place, many cities there were on the brink of bankruptcy. The SFPD shuttered the Zodiac case for lack of man power/resources before much could be done on that front.
SFPD reactivated the case (as a cold case obviously) in 2007 and have been involved in efforts on it since. They apparently managed to get a partial DNA profile out of something. Not one complete enough to give you a workable group of people, or to be admissible in court. But good enough to sometimes eliminate suspects (which they’ve been doing).
They’ve apparently helped with the Vallejo PD project involving the forensic Genealogist and team that identified the Golden State Killer. Vallejo has been trying to get a better DNA sample off envelopes and stamps from the Zodiac to run through that process. SFPD have apparently provided materials on that front.
IIRC it hasn’t been particularly successful thus far. Two years on and there doesn’t seem to be a clean sample or usable profile. Or at least there has been no significant news. It’s possible they have a sample, and are just grinding through the family trees.
When it comes to DNA and the Zodiac the answer is usually “what DNA?”. There’s evidence still around that should have had DNA 44 years ago. But DNA just doesn’t stick around forever. Storage conditions, contamination, lost evidence, just normal shit as time passes is gonna remove or damage it. I’ve never really heard “we’ve got the DNA, now we can do x!” out of any of these attempts to test Zodiac shit. They try, it doesn’t render anything usable. They try again.
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So they just threw CPU cycles at the problem.
Lawrence Waterhouse must be spinning in his cryo tank.
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