Cold Case Team Says It Has Identified the Zodiac Killer (thehill.com) 45
A team of more than 40 specialists believes that they have identified the Zodiac Killer, an unnamed serial murderer who operated in the San Fransisco Bay area in the 1960s. From a report: The Case Breakers, a team consisting of former law enforcement investigators, journalists and military intelligence officers, said in a press release that they believe they have identified the Zodiac Killer as Gary Francis Poste, who died in 2018. The Zodiac Killer has been connected to five murders between 1968 and 1969. The killer notably taunted authorities through complex riddles and ciphers sent to media and police during the investigations. The Case Breakers say they identified Poste as the killer after uncovering forensic evidence and photos from Poste's darkroom. The team said a few images featured in the press release show scars on his forehead that similarly matches scars on a sketch of the Zodiac. Jen Bucholtz, a former Army counterintelligence agent who works on cold cases, said the team also found deciphered letters sent by the Zodiac that revealed Poste as the killer, according to Fox News. "So you've got to know Gary's full name in order to decipher these anagrams," she said. "I just don't think there's any other way anybody would have figured it out."
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Wait, Ted Cruz was single-handedly powering the entire state? I mean, I know he's great and all, but a superhero?
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Cruz is not an elected leader, merely a glorified civil servant selected by vote, holding a position (federal Senator) that has little connection or authority over Texas's state electricity supply policy (in fact, as I understand things, the whole mess is largely due to the state choosing to exercise its right opt out of voluntary federal measures and programmes).
Cruz is welcome
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Wind power. Lots and lots of bluster, hot air, and rectal elucidation.
And I would know. ;)
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Wait, Ted Cruz was single-handedly powering the entire state?
You think Texans weren't desperate for his hot air?
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He is vaccinated but nice try.
Just because he thinks that it should be a personal choice versus a government mandate doesn't make him anti-vax. That's like saying you are anti-abortion if you don't think the government instead of the women should make the decision.
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Yeah, we know.. the Canadian "Texan" who fled to Cancun as power outages took hold in Texas last winter, resulting in a least 200 Texans freezing to death.
Terd Cruz is a disgrace, and he is the Zodiac Killer
You mean the Onion was wrong and it WASN'T Dick Van Dyke? Damn I've been blaming him for years.
For real this time? (Score:3)
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It would be more compelling if they could explain why he stopped and then lived out the rest of his life for decades.
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This clue was supposed to be very telling. It's a shame no one was able to decipher it...
RELLIKCAIDOZEHTSIZURCDET
I guess we'll never know.
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My favorite theory is he was drafted and then killed in action.
Brute force could have done this (Score:5, Interesting)
"So you've got to know Gary's full name in order to decipher these anagrams," she said. "I just don't think there's any other way anybody would have figured it out."
There are ~50k English surnames and ~5k common first/second names. If you ran the decipher against the combinations 5k_firstName * 5k_secondName * 50k_lastName, you'd have to go through ~1.25T combos. If you could check 100k/sec you could brute force that in ~5 months or less. Plus this would be trivial to spread the load across multiple computers and solve even faster.
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The 1960s called, they want your grid computer.
And their cold case back now that they have the answer.
Re:Brute force could have done this (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd have to know that the crypto key was, in fact, a personal name, and not "LANDWARD BRUSSELS" or some other random combo. Plus, Gary had a middle name that you didn't account for, and TFA doesn't mention whether it was part of the key.
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ROFL
Actually when I wrote Brussels, I had in mind my late pooch [imgur.com], a Brussels Griffon [akc.org]. (Though some say she looked more like a Schnauzer, she did have AKC papers specifying she was purebred.)
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"So you've got to know Gary's full name in order to decipher these anagrams," she said. "I just don't think there's any other way anybody would have figured it out."
There are ~50k English surnames and ~5k common first/second names. If you ran the decipher against the combinations 5k_firstName * 5k_secondName * 50k_lastName, you'd have to go through ~1.25T combos. If you could check 100k/sec you could brute force that in ~5 months or less. Plus this would be trivial to spread the load across multiple computers and solve even faster.
Depends what the "deciphering" was. The article gives no details and the group's press release [secureservercdn.net] makes no mention of it.
They seem to have some compelling circumstantial evidence but I'm always suspicious until some knowledgeable 3rd parties weight in on it. For instance, they supposedly have a team of 40, including retired FBI, but when they want a police station to compare the DNA of their suspect to a murder victim they need to resort to a press release?
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"So you've got to know Gary's full name in order to decipher these anagrams," she said. "I just don't think there's any other way anybody would have figured it out."
There are ~50k English surnames and ~5k common first/second names. If you ran the decipher against the combinations 5k_firstName * 5k_secondName * 50k_lastName, you'd have to go through ~1.25T combos. If you could check 100k/sec you could brute force that in ~5 months or less. Plus this would be trivial to spread the load across multiple computers and solve even faster.
Depends what the "deciphering" was. The article gives no details
https://www.foxnews.com/us/col... [foxnews.com] "In one note, the letters of Poste's full name were removed to reveal an alternate message"
Seems simple enough, but as the message hasn't been disclosed I'm highly skeptical.
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"So you've got to know Gary's full name in order to decipher these anagrams," she said. "I just don't think there's any other way anybody would have figured it out."
There are ~50k English surnames and ~5k common first/second names. If you ran the decipher against the combinations 5k_firstName * 5k_secondName * 50k_lastName, you'd have to go through ~1.25T combos. If you could check 100k/sec you could brute force that in ~5 months or less. Plus this would be trivial to spread the load across multiple computers and solve even faster.
Depends what the "deciphering" was. The article gives no details
https://www.foxnews.com/us/col... [foxnews.com] "In one note, the letters of Poste's full name were removed to reveal an alternate message"
Seems simple enough, but as the message hasn't been disclosed I'm highly skeptical.
As I said, "no details" :)
If it was a clear alternate message from a logical application of Poste's full name they would have led with that since it would be as good as a signature, case closed.
The fact they don't even go into details on this "alternate message" indicates to me that one of their team essentially invented a solution where none existed.
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As I said, "no details" :)
If it was a clear alternate message from a logical application of Poste's full name they would have led with that since it would be as good as a signature, case closed.
The fact they don't even go into details on this "alternate message" indicates to me that one of their team essentially invented a solution where none existed.
Some more skepticism from https://www.sfchronicle.com/ba... [sfchronicle.com]
David Oranchak of Virginia, who led a team that the FBI confirmed cracked the Zodiac’s 340 Cipher in December, said Wednesday it was improbable that the Case Breakers were correct in their analysis that the killer’s ciphers contained their suspect’s name. The Case Breakers were interpreting anagrams, he said, and that technique can produce a dizzying array of names and words with easy manipulation.
“It seems vanishingly unlikely that the name is actually in there,” he said. Colbert said Oranchak’s team was largely right in its solution to the cipher, but that it missed the anagram that contained their suspect’s name.
Which indicates it's the 340 cipher, looking at it and the solution http://zodiackillerciphers.com... [zodiackillerciphers.com] (David Oranchak site) it's not obvious how a removal of the letters in "Gary Francis Poste" would reveal any readable message.
From the rest of the sfchronicle article I'm reasonably convinced it's all bunk (the group claims to have solved the DB Cooper and Hoffa cases not to mention the holes in this one).
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Always drink your Ovaltine.
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They had a (short) known list of suspects they could test this on, and even if they hadn't, they didn't need to test every possible name - just those who lived in the area who were probably male. Maybe a million tops of possibles, with that number whittled way down into the thousands or even hundreds pretty quickly.
Is it just me? (Score:1, Flamebait)
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Its a sensational headline, like everything on Fox. Its the Jerry Springer of 'News'. That Geraldo is on Fox says everything you need to know about the Fox strategy.
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This former cop (Score:2)
Assume he got to be a cop at 18, and retired at 65, the math says he spent 65 - 40 - 18 = 7 years max as a cop. After 16 years of watching Law and Order and CSI on TV I have more experience at solving crimes than this bozo.
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Assume he got to be a cop at 18, and retired at 65, the math says he spent 65 - 40 - 18 = 7 years max as a cop.
I have an acquaintance who every time I see him he has to remind me was a peace officer and is very experienced in law enforcement before he goes on to tell me whatever random thing he wants to tell me.
Funny thing is. He was a cop for only 18 months.... and over 10 years ago.
I worked at McDonald's for 6 months as a teenager. I should call myself an experienced chef with lots of experience in the food industry!
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Why assume he retired at 65? "TV News Reporter" isn't a physically demaing job.
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Actually, one of the problems our justice system has is that many people think TV programs like Law and Order or CSI or NCIS actually represent actual investigations.
They don't.
A lot of the time, the methods and evidentiary testing available is much much less than what they show on TV.
Which results in juries not trusting cops who don't have the evidence the jury thinks they do.
That said, it is true that TV reporters and cops are in bed with each other, often just regurgitating the police view of a case inst
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Another issue is that the expectations from such programs have allowed pseudo-science (such as bite-mark analysis) to be portrayed as real evidence without judges or juries (or even defense attorneys) questioning it.
It wasn't Ted Cruz? (Score:1)
Such n00bZ (Score:2)
It was Ted Cruz's dad.
We all know it.
And Barr helped with the body work.
Again? (Score:1)
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