Unicity distance of the Zodiac-340 cipher

You are looking at a specific version 20211214:094110 of this paper. See the latest version.

Paper 2021/1620

Unicity distance of the Zodiac-340 cipher

Joachim von zur Gathen

Abstract

In December 2020, David Oranchak, Jarl Van Eycke, and Sam Blake solved a 51-year old mystery: the Zodiac cipher of 340 symbols. Blake (2021) explains their solution. The correctness of their solution has not been seriously doubted, and here we give a further argument in its favor: the unicity distance of the cipher's system is at most 152.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Secret-key cryptography
Publication info: Preprint. MINOR revision.
Keywords: historical cryptography Zodiak cipher cryptanalysis unicity distance
Contact author(s): gathen @ bit uni-bonn de
History: 2021-12-14: received
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2021/1620
License: CC BY