New online tool: Zodiac Pattern Drawer

[doranchak]

Dr. Garlick's students built a new tool that lets you create re-arrangements of the 340:

http://www.zodiackillerciphers.com/?p=617

Pretty handy!

[Jarlve]

That's a nice tool. Thanks for making mention of my solver!

Coincidentally I have also been working on such a tool, but with my decrypter built in and much more options. It's an experimental interactive homophonic substitution transpostion solver. It's unfinished and some of its features may be buggy and I removed the experimental stuff.


Edit: look for the download link in my latest post in this thread.

I don't want to write an in-depth review of how to use the program right now because I'm terribly busy with other things but I will give a basic rundown. Also for some reason the AZdecrypt included does not work as well as the standalone version but it should be okay.

Just unzip it somewhere and run examine.exe.

For using the Free path tool:
- Click on load, under File, left-side.
- Type in 340 in the box that appears, no need to type the extension if it's .txt. (cipherfiles must be put under Files)
- Click on FPT, in red, left side. This will alternate between having this mode enabled or disabled.
- Now under Grid right-click on Mode such that it reads, Mode: grid.
- To see a few examples click on Cycle, under FPT.
- To start over click on Clear all, under FPT.
- You can alternate between Untransform or Transform.
- To start creating your own path left-click on any square in the cipher grid. A number will appear indicating the order of the paths in which they are read in. You can then click on any square which is in a cardinal/ordinal directional path of it. Arrows will appear indicating the direction of the sub path. To close a path just right-click.
- While hovering over a path arrow you can press the "r" key to reverse the direction of a sub path.
- While hovering over a sub path arrow you can delete it, if it is the last sub path by pressing the DELETE key.
- While hovering over a path number, you can delete the whole path by pressing the DELETE key.
- You can save and load paths with an .fpt extension. If you name your paths p1.fpt, p2.fpt, they will be added to the cycle list.
- Clicking on render will actualize it.
- To see the plaintext translation set View to View: AZdecrypt and Mode to Mode: Code page 437, under Grid.
- There is bug that might require a program restart relating to the FPT.

While not in FPT mode you can transpose elements of the cipher:
- Click to select squares, can do box selection with shift.
- Left-click to transpose selected elements.
- Selections can be deleted with the DELETE key and then you can reduce the cipher by pressing the "r" key.
- Pressing the "c" key will clear all selections.

General:
- Pressing the ENTER key will reload the last Save state of the cipher, under File. This must also be done after changing the grid dimensions Hor and Ver.
- Input fields that require a number can be inputted numerically by hovering over the input field and pressing the ENTER key.
- Can drag the grid by holding the left-mouse button and SPACEBAR key and can zoom in and out with "+" and "-" keys.
- AZdecrypt scores for character sizes much less than 340 cannot be trusted because of program design and multiplicity reasons.

Have fun with it!

[Jarlve]

Here is an update,

Examine is an experimental interactive homophonic substitution transposition solver. At the moment I don't want to fully support this program, but an update may be released from time to time. Not every bit of functionality makes it into the versions shared.

Download Examine.zip (for Windows).

You need at least a resolution of around 1350*700 and a multi-core of multi-threaded processor is recommended.

I supplied 3 sets of n-grams, the standard is the one currently shipped with AZdecrypt, the "numbers" n-gram file is specifically for solving ciphers with written numeric content in them, daikon3.txt for example. And the usenet one is a much more dense n-gram file which may give better results for some ciphers.

Edit: no numerical ciphers supported atm.

To get started run the program and wait for the 5-grams to finish loading. After that click on LOAD (left-side menu) and enter the name of the cipher you wish to load which has to be located under the sub-directory /Files. I included a bunch of ciphers! You can adjust the HOR: and VER: settings to match the dimensions of the cipher. After changing the dimensions press the enter key to reload the cipher into the grid. In general you can click on everything that is not dark blue and you can press the enter key while hovering over numeric input to quickly enter a number manually.

As soon as you load a cipher the solver (AZdecrypt097) starts working in the background, at the bottom of the left-side menu you can change some of the solver settings. To look at what the solver has come up with click on VIEW, it should change to AZdecrypt and you will see the solve in the grid.

To lock a letter "a la ZKDecrypto" just press the "l" key while hovering over a letter. An input box will appear and you can enter a letter and press the enter key to accept it. The locked letter should now sit in a purple box. To unlock a letter hover over it and press "u", to unlock all letters press "shift+u" or "U" (caps).

You can also expand symbols by changing VIEW to cipher and hover over a symbol and press the "e" key. While hovering over the "+" symbol in the 340 this will assign a new symbol for each occurance of "+". You cannot un-expand symbols so you will have to reload the cipher by pressing the enter key.

You can reposition the cipher grid by holding the spacebar and click-dragging, the "+" and "-" keys will alter the size of the grid. Backspace resets the grid to its original position.

To bring up the non-repeat graphs for a cipher just use the "n" key. the graph display is not really designed for ciphers much bigger than 500 characters. There is also a pathing tool which allows you to draw a custom route in the cipher while AZdecrypt tries to it solve on the go. I have not described all its functionality, it is possible to do transposition of the cipher.

To exit the program press the escape key.

[masootz]

wow, that's fantastic. great work jarlve.

[Jarlve]

wow, that's fantastic. great work jarlve.

No problem, have fun with it.

[Humboldt_Squid]

Being the non-computer savvy person I am, I want to make sure I understand this. So you can choose any transcriptional route (ie diagonal, zig-zag, horizontal, vertical, spiral, etc) and then use a program to look for repeat patterns? Will I need to plug in the letters I think the symbols represent, like you do here? http://zodiackillerciphers.com/webtoy/

Thanks,
Squid