Let's Crack Zodiac - Episode 1 - Graysmith
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- čas přidán 2. 07. 2024
- Quarantine inspired me to create a new video series on CZcams.
It's called "Let's Crack Zodiac".
True crime meets classical cryptography.
Episode 1: Graysmith
Almost 35 years ago, Robert Graysmith published his blockbuster book, "Zodiac", and claimed to solve a famous unsolved Zodiac Killer cipher. But did he really solve it? Let's break it down.
Many thanks go out to:
Largo (for the awesome Zodiac font)
Michael Butterfield (zodiackillerfacts.com)
Mike Morford (zodiackillersite.com)
Phoenix Pictures/Paramount Pictures/Warner Bros for the Zodiac clips.
Internet Anagram Server (wordsmith.org/anagram)
And the FBI for releasing the Zodiac case files.
Congratulations David, you have broken the cypher. Your solution is good and valid.
Seriously man. Salute 🔥
And it's a likely identifier!
He said a computer did it
..I have a question for it
IOOIIO OIIOIO IIOOIOI OI OIIO OIIO IOIO OOII OOOIOI
"I'm the Zodiac and I approve this message... yes I'm like 105 years old and Ted Cruz."
It sounded so made up. Like who says 'you're solution is good and valid', sounds robotic.
I want this solved so they can solve the murder of Cheri Jo Bates. She was killed 10/30/66. She was my neighbor and babysat me when I was little! A number of us, now in our mid sixties want this solved before we die!
I hope it gets solved, my dads brother was murdered by him
How old were you when she died?
Ps sorry fo yo loss. (If your telling the truth.)
I'm really thinking Ross Sullivan Killed her and it's completely unrelated to the Zodiac Killer.
I had read somewhere that Ross's older brother was dating her. Any truth to that?
'Intestis as I hone Z'
'Mete Stine. I ensure it fund.'
'A hiss and tart senses a shake.'
'Leaf in Thea's hat'
...Gar.
Part of the word length based Morse transcription derived from the Riverside Confession letter.
Sent by me to Police in 2018.
No response.
I don't know if the RCL is from the murderer but it certainly seems allied to the 'Z' cases.
My 'suspects' are GSP and 🧸K.
Both went to Berkeley University
One as a student who spent two years in the military, the other as an eventually infamous Professor.
The ex military one might have used the March airforce base. I think they may have worked as a team. He appears to code this correlation in Caesar field code adjacent character steganography derived from the title of one of his books/essays.
'I used Ted K's gun'
'Max by my v.high,v.high IQ.'
Both still alive. One in jail.
Its solved!
That’s it! The Zodiac Killer was a “Complete Pong Master”
Check all ping pong tournaments in the relevant times and areas. We got him now boys!
Most importantly he got replacement mops.
I'm going to start telling people off by instructing them to go contemplate sperm.
PFFFT-
Robert Graysmith: Greg Mellen told me "go away boy, you bother me", but upon applying a substitution cipher plus a lot of rearrangement of letters, it turns out he actually said "congratulations, you've broken the code"!
lmao
Complete pong master is obviously the correct solution. He was giving us a clue to his identity. He is the pong master.
Hahaaa!! I just went into the same direction with my post before i saw your comment xD
"Got replacement mops" is the most eery message of all
Graysmith did a lot of creative "fill in the blank." About half of what he writes in his book is pure fantasy.
It’s a very entertaining book but yea lots of BS.
"Go contemplate Sperm" ... I almost chocked
Now that you guys actually solved this, this shows Graysmith was full of crap and got his "solution" completely wrong.
We've always known Graysmith was full of crap
Puts his claim that Arthur Lee Allen was the killer even further in doubt. Allen was definitifely a weird dude, but Graysmith might've unjustifiably made the last few years of his life hell. That's what's always bugged me about his book. He was publically convicted because of circumstantial evidence and for just being weird, while all the forensic evidence cleared him.
Yeah looks like he just wants to make a quick buck.
I mean, it was obvious before that too.
@@Raffini but JMC is a solid suspect in the shadows of the Bay Area
JMC also has a creepy personality disorder. Some dark triad and a history of being interesting in little girls. I learned through a deposition in 2018 after my mothers mysterious illness, questionable death that he in 1970 he was living in a trailer park in Vallejo right at the same time these incidents of murder and it Geary Street he’s only at eight minute walk away where he worked at Levi Strauss as a delivery driver on Union Square. I put my life on the line and I swear to God this creep killed my mother and I do believe Dana Stidham is his work also, You know she’s missing a sternum that’s part of the clue in the puzzle it’s a game still on for sternum. I could go on about this man all night long if people don’t start checking him out really really close there’s a great chance that they’re missing DNA and it could perfectly match. Unfortunately I met this psycho killer and I know he killed my cat that’s just obvious with poison anyways he pulled up in the driveway to date my mother when I was 12 years old he had just left California couple years earlier told my mother he needed a woman and it was so difficult to find a woman that would even look his direction, he really just wanted to get laid but my mom she somehow excused all the circumstantial evidence thought he was a good guy. He wasn’t But he is a Chamaeleon he’s not who he seems to be he’s very dangerous and he’s absolutely corrupted with his intelligence and getting by with naughty things for fun.
For some reason he wrote in a letter that he felt like he had to flee the deadly fog of California back to Arkansas in 1974 there you go
When I read Robert Graysmith's book, I could tell he really, really wanted to be the guy who cracked the 340 character cipher. His solution was optimistic at best, dodgy and unintelligible at worst. The Zodiac wrote in a polite monotone , the 480 cipher reflected that. Greysmith's solution was a hot mess. Congrats on your dedication and hard work. With luck, we might someday close the book on the Zodiac.
My copy of his book never mentions the 340 cypher on the front or back cover. If he thought he had actually solved it, he probably would have thought to mention that in the advertising. He had to of known that his solution was incorrect, any reasonable person can see it is mostly nonsense. I think he just really wanted to have something, anything on it to make it seem like he contributed more to the case than he actually did.
He did stumble across "slaves" and "because" in the same line. Was that just random good luck, or did he happen to follow the correct sequence for a fleeting moment, albeit inadvertently?
watch the last video, good catch!
I was thinking the same thing.
slaves was used it in the previous decoded message
@@PS-wh1yr OK, it makes that he would go looking for words that had been used in the previous Cypher.
For some reason people seem to think the slaves in the afterlife thing is new - it's not. It was in the original solved 408 cipher and many of his letters.
Took 5 episodes for you to crack it. Genius
An absolutely brilliant showcase of how you can solve a cipher using the "whatever the hell I want" method.
Code at the end of the video:
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers
Congratulations! Well done. :)
Well made and good and easy to understand - looking forward to see the next one 🙂👍
So glad Zodiac got those replacement mops. We needed them after the splatter cop got tempted to mangle that corpse after the complete pong master spent the whole day contemplating sperm. But you know what they say...
...Pros get a complement
Some people do love contemplating sperm
i thought you were just commenting random shit that had nothing to do with the video but i understand now
Go contemplate sperm is going to be my new insult to yell at people, that was great xD
zodiac totally feels like the kind of guy to need to get replacement mops
"Congratulations, you've broken the cypher" perhaps they were being sarcastic.
Yeah, he can't even decipher the sarcastic tone, lol
I mean, they told him they were going to release a statement
The Nancy Drew, true crime, puzzle enthusiast in me is really excited to watch this.
This guy needs more subs
I just finished watching the movie a few minutes ago. I went to look for more information and saw your video, it was very good. Now in quarantine I will read the book. I will be waiting for more episodes. Greetings from Peru.
Thanks for watching!
Seems like it's either not been encrypted properly and is therefore impossible to decipher or there is no message at all, it would certainly fit with the seeming narcissism of the Zodiac. He probably got frustrated that his relatively amateur first cipher was solved so quickly by a couple of high school teachers on a Sunday afternoon. The leftover letters on the first letter also show he likely wasn't an expert at encryption but no doubt his ego made him think he was.
A lot of the Zodiac's actions seem quite amateurish, but he had a lot of luck.
nothing about zodiac was professional. for gods sake, the guy created a persona right from comic books . other serial killers such as ridge way killed 50 people, yet had a IQ of 80
That's on the lines of what I just said also
Agreed....and are you related to George?
@@shlemp5183 I agree, but Gary Ridgeway wasn't looking for attention. Zodiac not only wanted attention he also wanted to control the narrative.
I agree. I think he was a guy of low intelligence who wanted to show how smart he was. Only an idiot tries to convince you that he's a genius.
This is a fabulous high quality video that really deserves more views.
6:00 “This one doesn’t have any recognizable words in it”
To: am I a joke to you
here after the solution of the letter actually came out !!! 11\12\2020
Great! Can't wait for part two!
Great vid! Thanks for it, i'm really looking forward to this series, keep it up!
Wow! Congratulations on solving this!! Thank you for all your hard work. Starting at the beginning of this series. Much love and respect!
I mean, maybe I’m biased but… I’m pretty sure the correct one was:
“Go contemplate sperm”
“Got replacement mops”
Fits like a glove.
Amazing, simply amazing. Well done to you and the team! 50 years in the making.
SOLVED in 2020. Yep, that sounds right.
I mean, I’m stuck at the beginning: how on earth did the Hardens crack a substitution code when each letter cycles through different symbols? Mind bogglingly brilliant.
^ Peter is asking about the couple who cracked the first Zodiac letter. It is their cipher key that many people use. They used a substitution method. However, it is not 1 to 1. As each letter uses multiple symbols. Logically, it's hard to comprehend how you'd be able to determine what the symbols stand for if each letter has more than one symbol.
I believe you first count the amount of symbols. Then you try to figure out which ones stand for E as it is the most used letter in english. But I'm just as lost as you.
@@WhatIsItAboutThem Yea sounds like bullshit, just like Graysmith's bullshit.
Informative and well made, it distilled a lot of information from your ACA presentation. I’ll be tuning in for any future episodes.
To me, Oranchak is articulate and gifted at clarity, from which I appreciate this quality in others. So, thanks, Dave. The video is a way of saying "What's wrong with this way of thinking about decrypting something?" without attacking the person for trying different things. We don't know the solution yet and are sometimes too quick to write off the person rather than the concept. This video explains this phenomenon well. That said, Graysmith did put forth a lot of effort and there is some value there. He said something interesting in his book that Mad magazine had a fold-in on the inside of the back cover where the drawing looks completely different when folded into vertical thirds. I had actually thought of that same thing on my own years ago and when I finally got around to reading his book in detail, that particular point got my attention when coupled together with what we now know since the 1980s. Apparently some others explored the angle as well, but there's more to do and the concept easily fits into what we've seen so far on decrypt snippets. For that reason alone it's a lead to the undeciphered portion of the Z304 worth pursuing further because the most reliable key stopped working after the first eight lines before working again near the last few lines. Maybe it's a horizontal fold into thirds, for example, given the fold-in effect. The two giant but backward LLs formed by patterns in the middle are another indicator that something like that is going on underneath. Maybe it's a play on the double LL that led to the Z408 cipher decryption in 1969. I don't know so I raise the question of a fold-in, or kaleidoscope type of overall cipher grid manipulation technique that the backward LL drives, but is borrowed from nostalgic publications, or something like that such as the Riddler from Batman that we just haven't hit upon because the murderer deliberately employs over-generalizations as for one of his obscurity tactics. Along those lines, the cipher writer likes to role play. At the same time, as everybody knows, role play was the initial process employed to solve enough of the Z408 to come up with a key as well as parts of the Z340, so it's a technique that worked in the past but it took a combined effort to get a yield.
Thanks for watching! These are interesting ideas. Donald Harden thought Zodiac might have gotten his cipher ideas from old detective story magazines. Maybe he read about some scheme similar to your ideas and it inspired the 340 cipher.
@@doranchak Thanks Dave I give them hell too. I didn't know that detail about the Hardens. We all pretty much know the plain text is coming from a moron who is asking for it once he gets caught and that's why the nostalgic magazines turned out to be a significant discovery. That's pretty much how you've started out your presentations that it's the ramblings of a lunatic. Amen. Deciphering the Z340 content has even greater psychological analysis value. At Berryessa the guy showed off his problem of mixing fantasy and reality.
Here's what I've turned up so far on the specific publication you mention: During World War II issues of Street & Smith's Detective Story magazine were distributed to American forces with "Overseas Edition for Armed Services" printed on the cover. We'll have to examine all versions (British, USA, USA-Overseas) to be thorough.
OK, at Riverside we have a different size but similar shoe and a paint-flecked Timex traced to a purchase at an overseas PX. That's a connection to Detective Stories overseas edition we didn't have before. Add Detective Story magazine Overseas Edition to the list of suspicious coincidences between Riverside and July 31st letter where I think the first Zodiac Killer self-ascribed symbol appeared.
When you watch Graysmith method you get a bad feeling the moment he starts ignoring symbols and discarding letters. It's way more of a Creative Writing exercise at that point.
I'm confused about how you took the zodiac's characters and deciphered them into numbers
thank you for the videos!
Subbed - Been waiting so long for quality content like this for this topic. Thank you and keep it up!
Just discovered your latest episode 8, had to come and start from the beginning, fascinating stuff
Nicely done! Extremely articulate presentation.
This is so great. Really hope to see more eps.
Thanks for watching. Working on Episode 2 now. :)
@@doranchak the editing is wonderful and really illustrates your points. Having done editing work I can imagine this is time consuming so thanks for investing your effort. I'm interested in the Hoax theory from Horan but there are some things that seem to not be addressed like the writing on the car door etc but it does make me wonder to what extent the ciphers are even relevant. Thanks again.
One thing that is disappointing is how many things Graysmith just bent until they fit.
Well done. Thank you for this much needed video.
Thanks for watching!
Great video man, explained in a very understandable way
Thanks for watching!
This is amazing so far.
Interesting video, thanks for the easy to digest breakdown of the cryptography involved.
NEW EPISODE! The 408! czcams.com/video/57o8g3d6lSw/video.html
Congrates on breaking the cypher, nice one mate.
Graysmith was pretty good at investigating the case. His attempt at code breaking was gibberish. It was not his strong suit.
omg i was just wondering why no ones taken a crack at it. thank you for this.
I think Graysmith just has a big ego, he wants to think he is the smartest. Basically he is full of BS.🙂
Fraud.
still smarter than u
RG made a fortune by wrapping up Zodiac
facts with his fictional babaganoush 🤡
I'm really stoked to see this new content. I've watched your ACA presentations multiple times.
I'd love to see an episode about the Harden's solution more in-depth and whether their solution in the 408 can be applied in any fashion to the 340. In other words, are there any clues in the other extant Z letters or ciphers that may be applied to the unsolved ciphers? I get that these have likely been tried to death, but it would be very interesting to see how you might try and apply the original substitution key and eliminate some obvious low hanging fruit solutions. It's frustrating searching through proposed cipher solution videos on CZcams by other people because of their lack of rigor so your adherence to verisimilitude is super refreshing.
Really enjoyed the video - thanks so much!
Really well made video. Great editing and visual style. 👍
Thanks for watching!
awesome watching this video after watching the most recent one!!
7:04 That is a Shakespearean insult if I've ever heard one.
I love your little cipher easter eggs.
Dude I love your videos!
Wow! This is fantastic! I've been interested in the Zodiac case for over 5 years now, I've always found the ciphers very intriguing and always wanted to learn how to solve them, how to apply cryptography, and I feel like I really have learned a lot from this. Cant wait to watch more.
I watched your 1 hour presentation on the 340 on youtube, i really loved that but I feel I do prefer this format more. The shorter eps seem more easier to grasp.
id love it if you done an ep on the guy that was in the 5 part series hunt for the zodiac, the show said that he solved it. i would love to know if he really did solve it or not.
I'd really like it if you done a video on Gary stewarts decryption of the cipher too.
Also, on CZcams, you should check out a guy called Drew Beeson, he's got a series of videos called Sighting in on the Zodiac,, this is his channel: czcams.com/channels/xv5EfTss01iDhELoBZwdDw.html
and there's a new indie production, an 8 part documentary series called Zodiac Killer Obsession Into Darkness, the first ep is over an hour long, here's a link to it: czcams.com/video/wiqiIU4Imf4/video.html
Its an awesome episode, i cant stop watching it!
Ur actually amazing at what u do, seriously
And then, outside of the rush and hunger for fame, attention, power and money, ..humble people step up and patiently apply intelligence and focus and even share credit upon success. Thank you David and others. You have inspired many to apply those good qualities to their pursuits in life. I was praying for a solution and breakthrough in the case. I am so pleased by the developments
Thank you! Our success was definitely the result of the efforts of an entire community. Our 3-person team could not have accomplished it without the work that was done before us.
> Complete Pong Master
> Go Contemplate Sperm
Ah I see, a Gamer in the 1970s.
> Got Replacement Mops
Never mind, gamers never clean up the place.
Looking forward to more episodes
I have an idea for a future episode. one where you solve it. edit: looks like you took my idea. glad I could help
I just want to say You do pro quality editing, videography 😉👍
Thank you so much 😀
Fantastic video, it had me completely hooked. Doubt that I will be the one to crack this code, but I will keep on trying though.
Oh hell ya. Found my new favourite series
I like that your still positive and just want it solved. I think the more ideas even the dumb ones can help a collective solve it. Theres obviously something very unique to the way this codes written and I think an unorthodox approach could be helpful
Netflix is gonna make hell of a series once this case is really solved!
Transposition and definitely has some type of key to even begin to starting the cipher. Interesting 🤔. 👍
Is Zodiac's unsolved cipher a hoax, or does it have a real message?
Let's investigate some possible clues, in Episode 2 of "Let's Crack Zodiac": czcams.com/video/uyH9-AHz-HY/video.html
It was Richard Gaikowski. 'GYKE' was spelled out. The idea that those four letters would be spelled out and Gaikowski was an actual person? Exponentially improbable.
Do you think it just happenstance and a coincidence that LT. Paul Kiel signed off on the brief police report for P. Stine that is found on the net? Or that LT equals both 32 and 3898? Or that the other two last names on the report are "Peda" and "Pellisetti"? Both are a little too appropriate to the case?
Some videos on CZcams age like fine wine... like this one
Graysmith should be called The Zodiac Reaper as he used creative license under the ruse of "I have insider's information and brilliant deduction skills" all the way to the bank. He reaped his fortune, but he ultimately damaged the Zodiac case going forward with his layers of BS.
Bone Chilling Discovery. Bravo 👏
My Name is ; ____________ . (13 characters long).
"Edward Edwards." He's probably using a decoder ring from the 1940's like Little Orphan Annie. (Ed was an orphan). It's probably not that complicated of a process. He probably used a decoder ring and replaced the numbers with his own symbols on the actual ring. I'll watch more of the videos in the series tomorrow, but the Edward Wayne Edwards guy could be the Zodiac Killer IMO.
Robert Graysmith's contribution to Zodiac research is huge, without any doubt. But over the years, too many things within his Big Picture of the Zodiac story have fallen under all kinds of suspicion. Much like his forced solution to the 340 cryptogram that you reveal in this video, it has been revealed that he also "forced" other facts in evidence in order to make a case against his prime suspect. I have never favored any of the named suspects that orbit around this case. In fact, I believe that if/when Zodiac is truly unmasked, it will be someone that has never been on anyone's radar. I really enjoy your channel here and I appreciate your straightforward, levelheaded approach to the subject.
Thanks Curt. Yes, I agree - There's a good chance Zodiac is someone no one has considered. Similar to how the Golden State Killer case turned out.
I have to watch this more.
I know absolutely nothing about cryptography and I am sure this has been thought of/done. What about mirroring? Either in half or quadrant mirroring of text/symbols? Thank you for the amazing video
You have so much stuff, a zodiac playlist would really help.
Great idea! I went ahead and made one: czcams.com/play/PLm7h0J9VRFvdwVyXuKd0sZTiI_FH5ZgtC.html
@@doranchak Thanks David.
As with everything Graysmith has done in relation to zodiac, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
Great video David - you seem like someone who has the knowledge to possibly crack that cipher ! Get to work on it and update us with your findings :)
Thanks. Will do. :)
Pretty cool video 😎👌
Thanks 😁
I haven’t watched the rest of this series, but I just wonder how power the encryption would be if the key changed. Maybe there’s only one way to substitute letters for symbols, but each 5 lines has its own columnar transposition, for instance.
That definitely would have made it more difficult to solve, if not nearly impossible!
czcams.com/video/UfrFSrI05hk/video.html
The new episode of Let’s Crack Zodiac has been released!
It’s about the aftermath of the 340 solution.
And how the cipher might have been created.
I take that back! I did use linear Algebra just didn't realize it until now.
As if this year couldn't become any more unbelievable, the Zodiac 340 Cipher is solved.
i remember taking encryption classes for college as a math major. Our final was to decrypt some code. I remember thinking I had found it out cause eventually you get some kind of a sentence that "sort of" makes sense but its just a false positive. looks like Graysmith was finding the same things. Esp since he was an amateur code breaker, he just sort of jumped to conclusions
And in addition to that... We know how proud He was and loved to boast! He is surely following all the biggest guys like YOU investigating him. He loves the attention and now more than ever keeping him alive".'
Nice video! I'm really looking forward to this series. What is your greatest guess or assumption as to how to solve this cipher?
The biggest challenge is to identify the system that was used to create the cipher. I think he probably added at least one more step besides substitution. My guess is he did some kind of transposition or some kind of manipulation of the cipher grid before or after the substitution step.
@@doranchak Would it be possible the cipher would have to be cracked by flipping it over? Because all the symbols can be looked at in reverse. Maybe this is one of the missing steps.
I solved the cipher, but not in the way you or anyone really would think. From all the information I gathered on Zodiac, he was most likely dyslexic. With this fact in mind the final cipher starts tomake sense. Besides being dyslexic, the way the words in cipher are aranged might point out to him writing the letters while having a stroke.
GREYSMITH: His book has been shown by ALL dedicated Zodiac investigators to be full of half truth, hyperbole, and outright lies.
He refuses any interviews
Zodiacs crimes the cat and mouse game with police was high in profile and many times risky stuff. I am pretty sure he has done crimes before partly to practice and to see his name in the paper. And when he does not get enough attention and he gets more self assured he graduates to the crimes he is infamous for. I believe he made a mistake(s) before in the beginning.
David you are a genius.
This is great. I'm checking "all" your Zodiac videos. You should do a separate YT Channel for non-Zodica content. Kudos.
Graysmithing at its finest great vid!
I think it's 'complete Pong master.'
Very cool
unreal man....congrats. Unsolved no more
Just some thoughts I want to throw out and see what others think.
First, It seems strange that after several months of the 340 cipher not being solved and given that we know the Zodiac liked to taunt the police, it seems (to me) strange that he would pass up the opportunity to point out how stupid, ineffective, etc the police and others were because they couldn't solve the cipher.
Also some people believe the 340 cipher is just gibberish and of course this would make the cipher unsolvable. But my understanding is that the cipher does seem to have a structure, which makes it more likely that the cipher does contain information or a message(s).
Someone mentioned that the 340 could have been created using another language. If so maybe that's the reason the 340 hasn't been solved. But I've read that some people believe the zodiac was a "cipher novice" so is it possible he created 340 not realizing it would be unsolvable?
But if the 340 didn't contain any info that would point to the zodiac why, at some point, would the zodiac not provide the key so to again prove how smart he is compared to those trying to catch him?
Questions, questions.
Your thoughts please.
I believe he just made it probably with a message in mind, but then decided to mess it up completely. The more people talk about trying to solve it, the more people remember the zodiac killer, which is the whole point of most serial killers, to have recognition.
It is why things like mass shootings are far more prevalent in the past decade, even though guns were more easily acquired just a few decades ago, because the media stops news to cover the one killing, which promotes the killer into infamy. If you can't be famous for doing good things (which is hard), at least be famous for doing bad things (which is easy) is their mindset. If one person gets famous for killing people, then other attention starved individuals will follow the "winning" formula. This is also why LE have always said the media should not be making a big deal about mass shooters and should not be going into exposes about their background, but the media obviously doesn't listen because they care more about ratings than lives.
I have watched a number of your videos and played around with the program on your site. I have no experience with ciphers and am very ignorant. However, as do many others, I have a theory which I tried.
My theory is that normal looking letters obviously spelling out small words--for instance HER at top left of 340--are meant to be used that way. Then there are cipher letters also representing the alphabet. In approaching it this way I was able to bring the frequencies very close to what would be expected in the plain text. (Hope I used the terms correctly.)
I also think the lines are meant to be read left to right, right to left, etc. , alternately. Or perhaps the ends of lines show direction. For instance I note:
OK =>?
KO
Whooooo let’s go!
So cool