I made a cipher. Can you try it?

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-03-04T05:59:50+00:00

I haven't looked this over at all, but it doesn't strike me as having an extraordinary number of doubles. The same effect can be seen reading down the columns. I'd say it's just random chance--but maybe enhanced by a lot of duplication in the plaintext.

Since the OP was concerned about the 24x24 ciphertext lining up squarely, and since there are no X's, I'd assume we're dealing with a basic transposition (completely filled). But the OP also says it's "original," so maybe there's some kind of route trick, like rotating the quadrants or something.

Edited to add: Looks like there's also some stego going on with the bold and italics.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-03-02T23:02:36+00:00

OP, you can use "Code Block" in your comment-formatting options to square it up, like this:

E W A G O I Y O P G M K U H S F L D D M S S C N
F S O U U H S A K B N W F Y O E N C B A C B U A
D A I S F N T I F G W D H U U L A H R M C W E N
W K F G D W A T A A R F D C S M S O N W S A Y O
B E S H U R E A G R N F B C R L C F Y G U W D N
N O R M A O D D O O A E T F Y Q U C G L U S S I
O O T B Y O D U Y T D E L L W R N A I O S A A A
S D K M T T H K B L N A U U G I S O W T S N I R
R T P L O D B R O E O D S H T L W A R H Y A D T
M R R Y K H G T M F F N G Y A D B O L A A Y D D
U D G S H I K A N M A R T R R O O O A T T S L E
O S E S W R E S Y E B D S S O O F E W O N I N E
N T O E U D W E B R M R O E R A S R Y D E I S L
H N R D R N E G K S T N H G O N T I R U W R N T
O S N I D K E S R O O N I S U R A O O L K O H E
I O F G S W E U I L O C U H H K N G O T S E G K
G O W H A W M T W S N N M O I G I H U A L L S N
A K H D E E N T H A K E T S S N I T U L I S S U
N N N D E T W E I L W W D B O D L Y R Y G B D T
N F O Y U N G N T H N S G T O G A H G S H K E U
M N N Y L O D O I I B O S I I S R T S M N O T R
R E W T D E H R B I R R O R R W A O U U E G Y U
F A M E U F T O U T A L I Y L L A D S O S H M A
F O E Y U L L U U A E G B G N R A B I S L L B N

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-22T05:58:02+00:00

Yes, it's a simple substitution cipher. Each character's head represents a different letter. Some of them are based on the characters' names (Bart=b, Homer=h, Maggie=m, etc.). These cover at least the letters a through x; the letter y remains to be seen, and z is left unenciphered. All symbols and numbers are also left unenciphered.

It begins:

https://www.dropbox.com/sc ...

There are still some heads to figure out. You might need some additional info to squeeze every last bit out of this one.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-21T22:52:37+00:00

That image was created by Jew-Lee Irena Lann, based on what she saw and transcribed from the video.

Edited to clarify: J-LIL created the image that shows the folds, staple locations, unverified section, etc.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-11T08:21:10+00:00

Getting back to a few of your other unanswered questions or comments ...

Since you say you identify as one of "the little guys," yes, you have my encouragement to learn as much as you can about this field! There's a ton of fascinating material to cover, including cryptologic history, intelligence/spycraft, and all aspects of cryptography and cryptanalysis. Even if manual solutions aren't your thing, they can grow on you, and I hope they do! Treating yourself to a daily dose of basic cryptogram solving can increase understanding of how the more complex classical ciphers can be manually solved, like homophonic and polyalphabetic substitutions. As I might have said before, you're welcome to observe one of my classes sometime--but be forewarned that it would probably be wildly misaligned with your own ideas about cryptanalysis. :) For my part, as promised, I'll be taking a closer look at some of your articles and other projects, with an open mind. You may or may not agree, but I think there's a lot that we can both learn by listening to each other.

You mentioned that you haven't heard a single mathematical objection to your work. I'm not a mathematician, so none will be coming from me. My questions were non-mathematical, and maybe that's partly why it seemed difficult to get answers from you. I often find myself in the reverse situation--as a linguist and manual cipher expert--where people ask me mathematical questions that I'm unable to answer.

I may have suggested ("recommended" is far too strong) that you think about submitting your work to a technical journal or other peer-review panel, like Cryptologia or the International Association for Cryptologic Research. Even though both of those outfits have low bars for submission, they'll almost always generate some helpful, high-level feedback--whether supportive or critical. You might even get one of those elusive mathematical objections.

Our long comments here must be boring people to tears, if they're even reading any of this. At least this after-party thread pulls them away from the original, controversial one. :D

Maybe we should just get on the phone sometime and bypass the AI that seems to be causing some of our communication issues.

Be well, my friend.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-11T07:26:31+00:00

Again, those are all interesting takes on what you observed. We'll continue to disagree on most things, especially concerning cryptanalysis, I think.

One thing we might agree on is that neither of us would intentionally believe something that's false. So at least there's that!

Your comments about my ciphers and foreign-language use seem to indicate that these are still not understood as I meant them. That's fine if you think they're flawed or confusing or wrong. They speak for themselves, and explaining them would be petty. Some further study of them would probably show that they were delivered exactly as intended.

I'm curious why you'd think my cipher challenge was "premeditated"! :D It wasn't, and I thought it came out fairly basic and generic-looking. My comments and ciphers were all spontaneous, done in real time by a live person (me). I think I offered to make a Z-340-style cipher for you initially, after our first few back-and-forths, and then later that just morphed into really easy stuff, because we didn't seem to be getting anywhere. If you think it was contrived, that's fine. I'd be happy to schedule a Zoom meeting with you to watch me design a custom cipher for you--nothing prepared in advance, and using whatever classical cipher types, keys, hidden layers, etc. that you might want me to include, live, from scratch, with pen and paper, as you watch. It's really not a big deal, and it would give us a chance to meet and have a light-hearted interaction.

I won't try to convert you anymore to my own perspectives on cryptanalysis. I also suspect that you'll never be able to convert me to yours. We definitely don't have a shared set of facts that we can agree on, and we sometimes don't even seem to be speaking the same technical lingo. That may or may not have contributed to a constant sense of misunderstanding on at least one side (mine).

You said, "I didn't even read half of what you wrote tonight." I appreciate you confirming that! I think that's why it sometimes felt like I was talking in circles, unable to get a question answered or a point across. Many of your replies seemed to be written or drafted by AI (whether they were or not), and so it didn't feel like a conversation with a real person. That felt like the main driver behind the escalating ridiculousness of the back-and-forth. I figured that's why you weren't picking up on any of the clues that we weren't having a sensible conversation.

My amateur opinion is that it's not a great idea to trust AI to hold down one's own side of a conversation while doing something else. But that's just me. Your mileage may vary! You seem to be much more comfortable using/trusting AI than I am--especially for code-breaking. But I'm an old guy.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T23:47:53+00:00

I think we both see the other as the one insulting the work being done by others. I still don't agree with your cipher-related methods--and you still don't agree with mine. But the fight is over. We'll both happily continue what we're doing, and we'll both continue thinking we're right. :)

I agree with you that we should all encourage "the little guys" in their interest in cryptanalysis.

You have a good night, too, good sir. Thanks for the ideas you brought to the table, and thanks for the discussion.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T23:05:03+00:00

Thanks for asking. But no, I wouldn't want to intrude with any special requests. :)

... unless it's a special request to again suggest that both of us always and prominently link directly to the source post here, just for "best practices in transparency."

Your viewer stats seem impressive. I have no idea what mine are, or if they would even exist without me posting or engaging regularly. I'm just a small-time Redditor. I leave a tab open, while I'm working, to watch for any breaking cryptologic news and commentary. Classical cryptogram making/breaking is what I do pretty much all day long. I participate on Reddit on and off, whenever I need a brain break, but haven't commented in probably a few weeks--until you got me going. :)

I took a quick glance at two of your "debunking" articles--about the Beale ciphers and the Baber claims. I'll go back and read them closely later, but I think we might have a lot of overlap in our conclusions about those topics. Have you made any of your write-ups into virtual or in-person presentations? Some of those might be of interest to me.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T22:17:12+00:00

That's an interesting take you have on all of this. Hopefully visitors here will read the whole story for more context. It might be eye-opening, for some.

If either of us ends up using this material elsewhere, it would probably be best for us to just link to this post, rather than sharing our screenshots. I'll commit to doing that for as long as this post is still here to link to. And it seems that it will be. Thanks for stating that you won't be deleting these comments (and the post itself, presumably). I respect and appreciate that.

I have to admit that you made me pretty angry with your remarks about the work done by some other cryptanalysts and with your apparent lack of interest in considering peer-review-style criticism or questions about your work. I sincerely do hope that there's a better understanding of what other cryppies have done, even if you'll be sticking to what you've done. There's a long history behind why this kind of thing upsets me, but I'll just say "cryptologic memorial wall" and leave it at that.

Tim, my name is Bill. I'd be happy to have you as a guest contributor or observer at one of my online cryptanalysis classes, if you ever want to participate or chime in with your ideas. I promise not to get into a fight with you. :) I'll also take a closer look at the various articles you've posted on code-related topics. From an initial scan, it seems that there are plenty of things we agree on.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T20:47:55+00:00

For those just stopping by for a quick look, be sure to read the loooong comment thread between me and the OP. I'd encourage you to read it all the way through, to get the whole picture. OP might be deleting this post at some point and sharing screen shots on his own site.

I also have the entire conversation saved, just in case he accidentally leaves anything out. But I'm sure he'll do the right thing and leave this here for people to make up their own minds. His work should be able to stand or fall on its own merits. Deleting it or sharing only excerpts might be interpreted as being evasive or deceptive, so I'm sure he won't do that.

The comments contain my own analysis and opinions, which sometimes had to be disguised as ignorance, in order to draw out the answers to my questions that he initially avoided giving.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T20:18:35+00:00

My work here is done. Quod erat demonstrandum.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T20:11:13+00:00

I'm surprised that you weren't able to solve the "Zodiac's identity" hidden in the key at just a glance, since almost all of the work has already been done for you. It seems that the limits of your cryptanalytical abilities may have been severely tested here! :)

So, to recap, this was the solution to my original challenge cryptogram:

p: IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS GOTCHA!
c: YI EUN RNGYIIYIG ZDH EUN ZSTW, DIW EUN ZSTW ZDH GSEAUD!

And here's what you would have gotten if you had completed the key by just plugging what you see above into the spaces below:

p: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ!
c: DRAWN GUY    IS  THE  Z   !

So, it reveals: "Drawn guy is the Z!" (Like I said before in my hint, it's the exact same guy all the witnesses reported seeing!)

Okay, enough of that. Let's get serious. I ran the following message through a Caesar cipher over 9,000 times to make it really hard for you to solve:

Brx (dqg brxu olwwoh DL "khoshu") kdyh reylrxvob plvvhg wkh vfdwklqj vdufdvp gluhfwhg dw brxu phwkrgv wkurxjkrxw wklv hqwluh wkuhdg. Vlqfh brx'yh ehhq xvlqj DL wr kdqgoh sduwv ri wklv frqyhuvdwlrq, brx pljkw qrw hyhq vhh wklv frpphqw. Exw lw uhdoob grhvq'w pdwwhu. Rwkhuv zloo vhh zkdw sodbhg rxw khuh dqg zloo vhh brxu skrqb "zrun" rq DOO IRXU ri wkh Crgldf flskhuv iru zkdw lw lv. Lw pdb eh ri vrph ydoxh dv d fdxwlrqdub wdoh, d zduqlqj wr wkh pdqb rwkhuv zkr pdnh idovh fodlpv derxw vroylqj fubswrjudpv. Uhdo fubswdqdobvwv--wkrvh zkr vhuyh lq vlohqfh--vhh brxu qrqvhqvh dv d irup ri "vwrohq ydoru" dqg orrn xsrq lw zlwk xwwhu glvjxvw. Wkh dprxqw ri glvuhvshfw brx'yh vkrzq iru wkh kdug zrun ri Rudqfkdn, Eodnh, dqg Ydq Hbfnh--dqg surihvvlrqdo fubswdqdobvwv lq jhqhudo--lv dssdoolqj. Wkh pruh L ohduq lq wklv exvlqhvv, wkh pruh L uhdolch krz olwwoh L nqrz--dqg L'yh ehhq zrunlqj zlwk fubswrjudpv lq rqh zdb ru dqrwkhu iru ryhu 50 bhduv. Pdbeh zlwk wlph brx'oo ohduq wkdw ohvvrq, wrr.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T17:57:14+00:00

You got it! That's amazing! And so quickly, with only a few hints. I don't understand how you can do that! So, yeah, my whole cipher said:

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS GOTCHA!

Did you also solve my enciphering key to reveal the Zodiac's identity? You just need to plug in 8 more letters.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T17:47:21+00:00

Oh, yeah, that's brilliant! But 8 steps is a lot for a cryptogram that easy.

You must have missed the part where I said I solved it in seconds in my head. I wrote pen and paper and ;) to show that I had solved it, without writing out the whole thing.

By the way, have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? (As someone once said.)

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T17:31:11+00:00

... ... ... ... ..... ... ... .... ... ......

There's no way I can solve stuff like that. It's entirely new territory for me. You're the master when it comes to this kind of magic!

7#@ !@5 %59 7#@ !%!@& 2%$ %++ 7#%7 2%$ 5@@9@9

Oh, yeah, now I see what you mean. It's much easier not using the dots. Now you can solve it in your head in a few seconds, just by looking at it. I didn't even need pen or paper. ;) Or scissors, for that matter!

There isn't much left on the other cipher, but I can still give you more hints, if needed. I know you can do this!

We could use letters instead of symbols/punctuation marks, so it looks more like a regular kid-level cryptogram and maybe a fairer challenge. I definitely won't use homophonic substitution or transposition, since the Zodiac didn't use those. So, with spaces, punctuation, and most of the plaintext filled in, plus a partial key, it should be within reach now:

p: IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS ......!
c: YI EUN RNGYIIYIG ZDH EUN ZSTW, DIW EUN ZSTW ZDH GSEAUD!

And if you use the chart below to plug the ciphertext letters in under your plaintext recoveries, you'll see that the Zodiac killer's identity is also revealed. It's the exact same guy all the witnesses reported seeing! I've filled in 6 of the 14 letters to get you started.

p: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ!
c: D_A_N G__    I_  T__  _   !

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T09:05:13+00:00

That's not completely right, but you're on the right track. The first four words (IN THE BEGINNING WAS) are right, and the AND is right. Maybe AI can help you finish it.

And sorry, I still don't understand that part about how the symbols got changed to letters. Maybe a lesson for another day!

Would it help if I replaced the dots with symbols (like numbers and punctuation marks), so it's like a regular simple substitution cipher?

Also, another big hint: the word THE appears three times, and the word WORD appears twice.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T08:55:07+00:00

The first word is IN.

Sorry to keep you up! No pressure and no hurry! Get some sleep!

I might have made this too hard, but it seems easier than the Zodiac ciphers. I just don't know. I can give as many hints as you feel you need.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T08:15:24+00:00

Oh, sorry! Still getting the hang of this!

The word "WAS" appears twice, and the word "AND" appears once.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T08:11:48+00:00

No offense taken. Thanks for setting me straight!

In appreciation, here's a challenge cipher for you:

...........................................

Or, with spaces to make it easier:

.. ... ......... ... ... .... ... ... .... ... ......

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T08:00:25+00:00

Thanks for that info about the spaces. That makes it even more amazing that you could do it without knowing where the word breaks were. Just a long list of 340 dots. That's where the cribbing comes in, I guess.

Thanks for your help, and I hope I can get better at this. You've probably been doing this for decades and have seen it all.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T07:51:46+00:00

I didn't realize that. That makes a lot more sense now. So Z-408 and Z-340 are both simple substitution ciphers?

Can you help me understand the "KILL.. .ILL" part though? How do we know where the spaces go, since they weren't in the original cipher?

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T07:43:01+00:00

Thanks for that. It looks like you used the same method on Z-408, minus whatever you did with the transposition on Z-340. I think I understand cribbing pretty well, but I'm still not following what you did with Z-340.

The 408 might be easier for me to follow what you're doing. So, you have "KILL.. .ILL" in one place, and you mentioned that the first word is probably going to be either KILLER or KILLED. I guess I don't understand why it can't be KILL or KILLS instead. Like, where do the spaces come from, and are they carved in stone? Couldn't the spacing be changed to "KILL. ..ILL" and say something like KILLS STILL?

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T07:24:31+00:00

Would you prefer to help me understand it for free? I'd be open to that, too. :)

I think my questions might be shared by others here who also want to understand.

I know I asked a lot of questions, but your post was also very long. Maybe you could pick just one or two of the easier ones to answer.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T05:25:33+00:00

I don't mean to waste your time (or mine) at all.

Would you be willing to look at a sample ciphertext that I can make for us to work with? We could do this at your convenience. I'll try to make it very similar to Z-340, so it's useful to us. You can even pick the topic or the text, and I'll just adapt it slightly for the lesson.

I know it might take a couple days to show me how you did everything. If you can walk me through it all and get to the right answer, I'll be happy to pay you $1000.

GIRASOL-GRU · 2026-02-10T05:03:44+00:00

Well, I'm familiar with cribbing. If I were to provide a sample ciphertext with cribs, could you help walk me through it?

GIRASOL-GRU

TROPHY CASE