Question
This person included a diagram of a sunlight-activated bomb in a letter that implied his name was Alfred E. Neuman, the mascot of MAD magazine. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this person who sent the Z340 cipher to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969.
ANSWER: Zodiac Killer
[10e] In 2020, a team of mathematicians used part of this company's Mathematica program to crack Zodiac's Z340 cryptogram. This computing company runs an answer engine that appends "Alpha" to its name.
ANSWER: Wolfram Research [accept Wolfram Mathematica or Wolfram Alpha]
[10h] In 1969, a pair of married teachers cracked the Z408 cipher by identifying "KILLING" as one of these commonly used words. This four-letter term refers to a word that is guessed correctly in known plaintext attacks.
ANSWER: cribs
<Other Academic - Other Academic>
Data
Summary
| Tournament | Edition | Exact Match? | Heard | PPB | Easy % | Medium % | Hard % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 PACE NSC | 06/07/2025 | Y | 40 | 17.00 | 83% | 85% | 3% |