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Inside the 340: What the Cipher Actually Reveals About the Killer's Mind
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
For 51 years the Zodiac's 340 cipher defeated the FBI, professional cryptographers, and the world — until three amateurs cracked it in December 2020. This episode breaks down how they did it and what the decoded message tells us about the mind behind the murders.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
For fifty-one years, a block of three hundred and forty symbols sat in the public record and said nothing. Law enforcement couldn't crack it.
To understand the ciphers, you need the context they came from. The Zodiac's confirmed killing spree ran from December of nineteen sixty-eight to October of nineteen sixty-nine.
Starting in the summer of nineteen sixty-nine, the letters began. And with them, the ciphers.
The three-forty arrived later in nineteen sixty-nine. It was three hundred and forty symbols arranged in a grid.
The decoded message reads roughly as follows. "I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me. That wasn't me on the TV show, which brings up a point about me.
The three-forty's solution was a landmark. It genuinely was.
One thing the three-forty's solution does change is the picture of how the killer thought about the ciphers themselves. The four-oh-eight was solved by civilians in a week.
The Zodiac case remains officially open across three counties. Solano.
Chapter summary auto-generated from the verified script. Listen to the full episode for the complete content.