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Comment by camjohnson26 | Hacker News Reader

What does “much harder than it is” mean, it took 51 years to decipher it, that’s how hard it was.

He made mistakes using his own cypher.

Just curious. If someone were to start today, with today's computing power and knowledge of computers, how long would it take?

The answer to this can tell how easy it may be to create a similar problem today.

...and still the killer is unknown. That's pretty good, IMO.

What's the connection between the killer's identity still being unknown and the strength of this cipher? The killer lied: the plaintext doesn't contain personal information, or if it does, it's a riddle unrelated to the cipher.

The killer sent three cipers, my reading is that maybe 1-2 are now solved, they are not all solved yet. Are they?

They sent more than 3, the first 3 were solved quickly, this was a 4th that was sent years later. I believe the only undeciphered message is the text at the end of the 3rd cipher:

ebeorietemethhpiti

https://www.zodiacciphers.com/chronicle-letter.html

My error, article header mentioned 3 and then later said there was a forth.

> What's the connection between the killer's identity still being unknown and the strength of this cipher?

Maybe none.

This person killed several people, and THAT is your biggest problem?

> This person killed several people, and THAT is your biggest problem?

There's a discussion about how strong the cipher is, and:

thatwasunusual> ...and still the killer is unknown. That's pretty good, IMO.

Someone pointed out that measuring the strength of the cipher by the fact that the killer is unknown is a bad metric, and you seem to believe this as a defence of murder?

They are merely pointing out there is no connection between the fact the killer is unknown and if the cipher was strong or weak.

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