The cypher the Zodiac killer mailed in three parts to three San Fransisco area newspapers was solved within a month of being printed in August 1969. This is not an explanation of how the cypher was solved (that information can be found in Zodiac by Robert Graysmith) but instead how to use it. This is the only time the means to use the Zodiac cypher has been published. I backwards-engineered the code from the description in Graysmith’s book. Since the letters J, Q and Z were not used in the initial Zodiac cypher, there is no symbol for them in this explanation.
1. Write the source message to be encyphered, using poor spelling occasionally.
2. Replace the letters of the source message with cypher symbols in an ordered rotation. For example, go through the source message until you find the first letter A. Replace the letter A with the first symbol for A. The second time the letter A appears, use the second symbol for A. After you have used all four symbols for the letter A, use the first symbol again. Proceed to the letters B, C, etc.
3. Very neatly copy the encrypted message into seventeen-character lines, omitting all punctuation and spaces. Add letters at the end or at random within the encrypted message to insure each line has seventeen characters. Divide into equal parts as desired.
(from OVO 10 MAYHEM July 1991)
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