Poster cipher

[entropy Profile]

Is the poster maybe a lure? It was well documented at the time that Z liked publicity and notarity. Maybe a smart detective decided to carefully word the poster to bate Z. "great progress"; "going to catch"; a made up cipher?; picture of Z.

I think that is quite possible, Gindo. Why else would you put a cipher on a wanted poster? I think this was very likely created in the hopes that Zodiac would somehow respond to clarify whether he might have had a hand in Donna Lass' disappearance and perhaps the cipher was included to get his attention.

I actually wonder if the solution isn't meant to be read as a direct message to Zodiac from the family of Donna Lass, who are on his trail and confident about his imminent arrest:

BEWARE I AM STALKING YOU... DONNA LASS

[Gindodawg Profile]

Is the poster maybe a lure? It was well documented at the time that Z liked publicity and notarity. Maybe a smart detective decided to carefully word the poster to bate Z. "great progress"; "going to catch"; a made up cipher?; picture of Z.

I think that is quite possible, Gindo. Why else would you put a cipher on a wanted poster? I think this was very likely created in the hopes that Zodiac would somehow respond to clarify whether he might have had a hand in Donna Lass' disappearance and perhaps the cipher was included to get his attention.

I actually wonder if the solution isn't meant to be read as a direct message to Zodiac from the family of Donna Lass, who are on his trail and confident about his imminent arrest:

BEWARE I AM STALKING YOU... DONNA LASS

Entropy, I think that is very possible. However, I think (just me here) I might have written give us more details to make sure it was you. That approach seemed to work after LHR.

[smithy Profile]

Strange thing to put on a poster. Can't quite see the logic if that is what it says.

'you' doesn't quite fit though unless that's a mistake.

Just stubbed my toe on this thing. I hadn't seen the thread here before! Doh!

Having re-read the thread at TV's place I note that a very educated poster by the name of "slug" (can that be his real name I wonder?) noticed that the poster wasn't 70's at all but made up in MS Word much later on. This notion seemed to be confirmed by the later - 1980's at the earliest I think - telephone number it displayed, too.
The site still adverrtises this as a 70's poster - with the tell-tale MS giveaway seemingly edited or cropped out - which must be a small oversight by the webmaster I suppose.

Still!

To the real point of this post - I don't think for a second that the answer is as suggested, complete with the error in encoding to give "YOU", and no assignment for the "Q". Pah! For someone to take the time to match the symbols, use the 17-characters-wide format and then to get the message so fundamentally wrong doesn't fit, for me.
Does that part of the message say "SOON" perhaps? or "POOR"? Hmmmm.

Do we fancy another go? I realise that the answers suggested won't and can't be definitive because of the length of the material, but I feel sure we can do better than the current ideas. What say?

Here's a string for ZKD if you're going to use it.

abcAdbeAfSgALhiNjOOkDONNALASS

[glurk Profile Website]

Smithy-

I tried the best I could, thinking "outside the box" and the best I could possibly come up with was:

ZTHATTEARSHAPPENSOON....GONNAPASS.

"Z that tears happen soon.... Gonna pass."

Probably wrong, ofc. But maybe a better solution. It's up to others to decide. It DOES fit exactly, though.

-glurk

EDIT: I don't mean tears as "rips" ofc, but tears as crying. I'm kind of sorry I posted this, it's dumb. Or maybe not. I don't know.

EDIT 2: The area code shown on that poster (530) was not in use until November 1, 1997 - Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_code_530

[smithy Profile]

Better! See? I likes!
I was also wondering whether the "Donna Lass" bit played - and if "normal" rules apply in respect to distribution and use of homophonics, since this may have been made "by a civilian", so to speak. Hurrah!
Thanks, I'll spend a little time on it and have a few goes then.

Edit: "FEMALE SAYS L ALLEN TOOK DONNA LASS".

Hmm. Unfortunately this cipher's just as much of a nuisance as the Z13 32 and 340. Ho hum.

[_pi Profile]

Here is a solution that fits and that seems contextually meaningful:

I HEAR HEADS FALLEN SOON....DONNA LASS.