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A comment on The solution of the Zodiac killer’s 340-character cipher. Parent comment

Re:The solution of the Zodiac killer’s 340-character cipher by Hnrobert42 on Thursday March 25, 2021 @06:29AM (#26578437)
Without notoriety, it is unlikely the puzzle would be solved. Many cases are solved with tips following news reports. So reduced coverage could lead to reduced apprehension rates.

Alternatively, what benefit does reduced coverage offer? Do we know that less notoriety means fewer or less prolific serial killers? Maybe they would be even more prolific trying to get attention.

So if reduced coverage leads to reduced crime, then great. But if not, then denying them notoriety just hurts their feelings.

That’s great, but as it might lead to reduced apprehensions, I don’t think hurting their feelings is worth it.

Note: I don’t mean to belittle your point. I don’t like that society is so fascinated by crime either. But I think that is a separate issue.

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Re:The solution of the Zodiac killer’s 340-character cipher by platinumrad on Thursday March 25, 2021 @07:13AM (#26578765)
> Without notoriety, it is unlikely the puzzle would be solved.

I literally do not care one bit about this puzzle being solved. I do care, a lot, about people not getting shot when they go to the supermarket.

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Re:The solution of the Zodiac killer’s 340-character cipher by 1123581321 on Thursday March 25, 2021 @09:39AM (#26580106)
Those two things aren’t connected. Also, many people do care about solving this puzzle, both for the sake of cryptography and for the chance it will provide closure to the case, if not justice, at this point.

We needn’t worry about the stimulating effect revisiting decades-old crimes of an entirely different nature, for scientific purposes, may have.

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Re:The solution of the Zodiac killer’s 340-character cipher by eplanit on Thursday March 25, 2021 @10:14AM (#26580534)
The Zodiac puzzle was not involved in the shooting this week. It's ok to solve the puzzle.
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Re:The solution of the Zodiac killer’s 340-character cipher by pvaldes on Saturday March 27, 2021 @10:51AM (#26602692)
Don't blame puzzle solvers for an old rotting and recurrent problem that the politicians could stop at any moment if they would really want it.
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Re:The solution of the Zodiac killer’s 340-character cipher by Vhano on Thursday March 25, 2021 @07:05AM (#26578698)
there is considerable research on mass shootings. Guaranteed notoreity is a stimulus.
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Re:The solution of the Zodiac killer’s 340-character cipher by OOPMan on Thursday March 25, 2021 @07:43AM (#26579008)
The context here is key to why the OPs contribution is meaningless waffle.

There is a difference between a 50 year old cold case and a killing that happened last week.

In the case of a recent homicide with an actual arrest the "focus on the victims rather than the criminal" thing makes some sense.

In the case of the zodiac and other ancient cold cases it's rather irrelevant.

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