Symmetry and something interesting

[traveller1st Profile]

ASIDEDALSONDPEOPL
EBEGUISEASINTERIG
HTINATOTRYSICINTH
ANDALLINDWASIDERM
ONTHETHERESSBEGAI
NERUNATTHEROATHAN
DISTIMENARULYCALL
THDILLNORMSHANDDO
METRETHEREATTHEAL
LINDEXPERINGMASOS
EMENBETTESTHENDES
TANDBYIERHGDNOTCW

That's the 408 cut in half or close as.

[Wrench Profile]

No love here either.

Still turns the whole 408 into something readable in short order.

Where's the Glurkmeister?

[Wrench Profile]

Wrench, if you look back to the first page of this thread (actually my first post) I took Row 20 and transposed the symbols to match up with a row of symbols starting on Row 1 as a few of the symbols seemed to match pretty well...just out of pure whimsical thought I guess. Now, let's just say you're on to something when you say the cipher might be mirrored in each half. What if the transposition of several segments of symbols are required as the "key". For instance, what if we can use the ">" and "+" symbols that occur in two seperate locations on each half of the 340 and use them to rearrange the cipher symbols...I guess this might be akin to a cipher within a cipher within a cipher.

I hope this makes sense, it's really hard to express in words exactly what I'm speaking of.

Here is one example:

Again, my point is not to try and solve anything, but rather to see if anything I might show can be disproven, that way we can put it aside in the future.

Hmm, not sure on that one Jazz.

Further thoughts on a mirrored approach:

The doubles (++, etc.) do not mirror each other. Normally they would have the same plaintext value, so the matching plaintext on the mirrored side of the double has have two ciphertext values. I think that would work.

Another issue would be the IOF and FBC repeat trigrams, one of each in the top half and one of each in the bottom half, but not in corresponding places. Those would have to be chalked up to coincidence.

And of course the pesky pivots confuse the issue as usual.

[doranchak Profile Website]

In an effort to try and get this back on track...

Doranchak, does your new additions to your cipher solving program show the likelihood of the following type of symmetry occuring on a repetitive basis?

I finally added some code to look for "Jazzerman pairs" as I now call them. The result is that such pairs occur quite often, and purely by chance, depending on which axis of symmetry you select:

[aquiman Profile]

Dave,

I was trying to remember where the analysis was that you did on the significance of the "pivots". Did you determine whether it was likely that they were intentional or random? Thanks.

-tim

[doranchak Profile Website]

The forum posts are linked via this wiki page.

The relevant forum post is here: http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1282&p=21758#p21758

The results of my "shuffling" experiment strongly suggests that it is very hard to create those pivots purely by chance.

[Jazzerman Profile]

Doranchak, a huge for you my friend!

I figure we might as well look at all angle's when dealing with the 340, so it's good to see someone with more knowledge of programming than myself applying their knowledge to this cipher. As you say, it looks like this type of symmetry is quite common, but at least worth a look regardless. Great work!

Oh, and thanks for naming it after me (not sure if that's good or bad... ).

[doranchak Profile Website]

I definitely agree that it is worth looking into as many ideas as possible.

Keep looking for interesting things about the 340!