Misplaced Pages

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90-658: The Zodiac Killer is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who murdered five known victims in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969. The case has been described as "arguably the most famous unsolved murder case in American history," and has become both a fixture of popular culture and a focus for efforts by amateur detectives. The Zodiac's known attacks took place in Benicia , Vallejo , unincorporated Napa County , and

180-505: A "handle" (a term deriving from CB slang ), " user name", " login name", " avatar ", or, sometimes, " screen name ", " gamertag ", "IGN ( I n G ame ( N ick) N ame)" or " nickname ". On the Internet, pseudonymous remailers use cryptography that achieves persistent pseudonymity, so that two-way communication can be achieved, and reputations can be established, without linking physical identities to their respective pseudonyms. Aliasing

270-726: A Web server that disguises the user's IP address. But most open proxy addresses are blocked indefinitely due to their frequent use by vandals. Additionally, Misplaced Pages's public record of a user's interest areas, writing style, and argumentative positions may still establish an identifiable pattern. System operators ( sysops ) at sites offering pseudonymity, such as Misplaced Pages, are not likely to build unlinkability into their systems, as this would render them unable to obtain information about abusive users quickly enough to stop vandalism and other undesirable behaviors. Law enforcement personnel, fearing an avalanche of illegal behavior, are equally unenthusiastic. Still, some users and privacy activists like

360-587: A conversation on KGO-TV 's A.M. San Francisco . Investigators concluded Weill was not the Zodiac. He called the Oakland Police Department and demanded to speak to Belli or F. Lee Bailey on TV. During the show, Weill told Belli he would not reveal his identity for fear of being executed. He arranged a rendezvous with Belli on Mission Street in Daly City and did not show. On November 8,

450-445: A degree of privacy, to better market themselves, and other reasons. In some cases, pseudonyms are adopted because they are part of a cultural or organisational tradition; for example, devotional names are used by members of some religious institutes , and "cadre names" are used by Communist party leaders such as Trotsky and Lenin . A collective name or collective pseudonym is one shared by two or more persons, for example,

540-421: A favorable reputation, they are more likely to behave in accordance with the site's policies. If users can obtain new pseudonymous identities freely or at a very low cost, reputation-based systems are vulnerable to whitewashing attacks, also called serial pseudonymity , in which abusive users continuously discard their old identities and acquire new ones in order to escape the consequences of their behavior: "On

630-546: A field dominated by women – have used female pen names. A few examples are Brindle Chase, Peter O'Donnell (as Madeline Brent), Christopher Wood (as Penny Sutton and Rosie Dixon), and Hugh C. Rae (as Jessica Sterling). A pen name may be used if a writer's real name is likely to be confused with the name of another writer or notable individual, or if the real name is deemed unsuitable. Authors who write both fiction and non-fiction, or in different genres, may use different pen names to avoid confusing their readers. For example,

720-434: A good reputation. System operators may need to remind experienced users that most newcomers are well-intentioned (see, for example, Misplaced Pages's policy about biting newcomers ). Concerns have also been expressed about sock puppets exhausting the supply of easily remembered usernames. In addition a recent research paper demonstrated that people behave in a potentially more aggressive manner when using pseudonyms/nicknames (due to

810-438: A heavyset man looking at them from a distance before he hurried off. Around 2:50 p.m., three women noticed a strange man as they stopped on their way to Lake Berryessa. After they had arrived to sunbathe , they noticed the man again. Since they had potentially seen the Zodiac without his hood, the women worked with Napa Valley Register photographer Robert McKenzie to create a composite sketch using an Identi-Kit . Police showed

900-413: A log and stalled. The detective on the scene noticed that the car was still on and in low gear. Kelleher and Nuys suggest that Ferrin would not tell Mageau to ignore the mystery driver, nor would they assume he was a police officer, if they had not stopped at the spot by choice. Ferrin did know Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday. She lived less than two blocks from Jensen and attended Hogan High School. She

990-481: A manner that the new name becomes permanent and is used by all who know the person. This is not an alias or pseudonym, but in fact a new name. In many countries, including common law countries, a name change can be ratified by a court and become a person's new legal name. Pseudonymous authors may still have their various identities linked together through stylometric analysis of their writing style. The precise degree of this unmasking ability and its ultimate potential

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1080-409: A passing motorist noticed the couple parked on a gravel runoff near the gate to a water pumping station. They were spotted again at 11 p.m. Between 11:05–10 p.m., Faraday and Jensen were attacked. Police determined that their assailant parked his vehicle about ten feet alongside the passenger side of Faraday's car. He fired several shots at Faraday's car as he walked around to the driver's side. None of

1170-430: A police artist make a composite sketch of the man they saw at Stine's cab. The two patrol officers who questioned the witness near the scene realized it may have been the Zodiac. They also helped develop a sketch of the suspect. SFPD detectives Bill Armstrong and Dave Toschi were assigned to the case. Toschi ended up working on the case by himself and filled eight filing cabinets with potential suspects. In 1976 he told

1260-488: A process known as de-identification . Nicolaus Copernicus put forward his theory of heliocentrism in the manuscript Commentariolus anonymously, in part because of his employment as a law clerk for a church -government organization. Sophie Germain and William Sealy Gosset used pseudonyms to publish their work in the field of mathematics – Germain, to avoid rampant 19th century academic misogyny , and Gosset, to avoid revealing brewing practices of his employer,

1350-407: A program made by Van Eycke called AZdecrypt, the team ran 650,000 possible solutions for the cipher until the program came up with the best possible encryption key . In the decrypted message, the Zodiac denied being the "Sam" who spoke on A.M. San Francisco and explained he was not afraid of the gas chamber "because it will send me to paradice all the sooner." The team submitted their findings to

1440-431: A pseudonym in literature is to present a story as being written by the fictional characters in the story. The series of novels known as A Series of Unfortunate Events are written by Daniel Handler under the pen name of Lemony Snicket , a character in the series. This applies also to some of the several 18th-century English and American writers who used the name Fidelia . An anonymity pseudonym or multiple-use name

1530-412: A pseudonym is called a stage name , or, occasionally, a professional name , or screen name . Members of a marginalized ethnic or religious group have often adopted stage names, typically changing their surname or entire name to mask their original background. Stage names are also used to create a more marketable name, as in the case of Creighton Tull Chaney, who adopted the pseudonym Lon Chaney Jr. ,

1620-401: A pseudonym representing the trio of James Madison , Alexander Hamilton , and John Jay . The papers were written partially in response to several Anti-Federalist Papers , also written under pseudonyms. As a result of this pseudonymity, historians know that the papers were written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, but have not been able to discern with certainty which of the three authored a few of

1710-441: A pseudonym to disguise the extent of their published output, e. g. Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman . Co-authors may choose to publish under a collective pseudonym, e. g., P. J. Tracy and Perri O'Shaughnessy . Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee used the name Ellery Queen as a pen name for their collaborative works and as the name of their main character. Asa Earl Carter , a Southern white segregationist affiliated with

1800-696: A psychiatrist at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville to analyze the Zodiac's message. The doctor concluded the writer felt omnipotent based on his fantasy about collecting spiritual slaves. The analysis described the Zodiac as "someone you would expect to be brooding and isolated ". The psychiatrist speculated the killer's praise of murder over sex could be "an expression of inadequacy". At 4:00 p.m. on September 27, 1969, Pacific Union College students Bryan Hartnell (20) and Cecelia Shepard (22) were picnicking at Lake Berryessa on

1890-485: A reference to his famous father Lon Chaney Sr. Chris Curtis of Deep Purple fame was christened as Christopher Crummey ("crummy" is UK slang for poor quality). In this and similar cases a stage name is adopted simply to avoid an unfortunate pun. 9 mm caliber This is a list of firearm cartridges that have bullets in the 9 millimeters (0.35 in) to 9.99 millimeters (0.393 in) caliber range. All measurements are given in millimeters, followed by

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1980-667: A right to speak using a pseudonym. This right does not, however, give citizens the right to demand publication of pseudonymous speech on equipment they do not own. Most Web sites that offer pseudonymity retain information about users. These sites are often susceptible to unauthorized intrusions into their non-public database systems. For example, in 2000, a Welsh teenager obtained information about more than 26,000 credit card accounts, including that of Bill Gates. In 2003, VISA and MasterCard announced that intruders obtained information about 5.6 million credit cards. Sites that offer pseudonymity are also vulnerable to confidentiality breaches. In

2070-529: A small island connected by a sand spit to Twin Oak Ridge. Sometime later, Shepard noticed a man watching them. When he emerged from behind a tree, he put on a black executioner 's hood with clip-on sunglasses. He wore a bib with a white 3x3" [REDACTED] symbol on it. He brandished a gun, which Hartnell believed was a .45 . The Zodiac said he escaped from jail after killing a guard and needed their car and money to travel to Mexico. Before tying up Shepard,

2160-459: A soldier prêt à boire , ready to drink). In 1716, a nom de guerre was mandatory for every soldier; officers did not adopt noms de guerre as they considered them derogatory. In daily life, these aliases could replace the real family name. Noms de guerre were adopted for security reasons by members of World War II French resistance and Polish resistance . Such pseudonyms are often adopted by military special-forces soldiers, such as members of

2250-440: A study of a Web dating service and a pseudonymous remailer , University of Cambridge researchers discovered that the systems used by these Web sites to protect user data could be easily compromised, even if the pseudonymous channel is protected by strong encryption. Typically, the protected pseudonymous channel exists within a broader framework in which multiple vulnerabilities exist. Pseudonym users should bear in mind that, given

2340-613: A suspect. Moments after 12:40 a.m., the Vallejo Police Department (VPD) received a phone call from a payphone two blocks from headquarters. The man on the other end of the line said: "I want to report a double murder. If you go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to the public park you will find kids in a brown car. They were shot with a 9-millimeter Luger . I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye." Serial killers will commonly pause to reflect on their actions. Authors Michael Kelleher and David Van Nuys speculated that

2430-550: A wet palm print from the phone but were never able to match it to any suspect. The last confirmed Zodiac murder took place two weeks after the Lake Berryessa attacks. Around 9:40 p.m. on October 11 in downtown San Francisco , the Zodiac hailed a cab which was driven by a doctoral student named Paul Stine. The killer gave a destination in Presidio Heights . When the taxi arrived at Washington and Maple streets,

2520-406: Is a name used by many different people to protect anonymity. It is a strategy that has been adopted by many unconnected radical groups and by cultural groups, where the construct of personal identity has been criticised. This has led to the idea of the "open pop star", such as Monty Cantsin . Pseudonyms and acronyms are often employed in medical research to protect subjects' identities through

2610-624: Is attributable in large measure to its nearly non-existent initial participation costs. People seeking privacy often use pseudonyms to make appointments and reservations. Those writing to advice columns in newspapers and magazines may use pseudonyms. Steve Wozniak used a pseudonym when attending the University of California, Berkeley after co-founding Apple Computer , because "[he] knew [he] wouldn't have time enough to be an A+ student." When used by an actor, musician, radio disc jockey, model, or other performer or "show business" personality

2700-621: Is known to system operators but is not publicly disclosed), and unlinkable pseudonyms (the link is not known to system operators and cannot be determined). For example, true anonymous remailer enables Internet users to establish unlinkable pseudonyms; those that employ non-public pseudonyms (such as the now-defunct Penet remailer ) are called pseudonymous remailers . The continuum of unlinkability can also be seen, in part, on Misplaced Pages. Some registered users make no attempt to disguise their real identities (for example, by placing their real name on their user page). The pseudonym of unregistered users

2790-491: Is my idenity." He demanded the codes be printed on each newspaper's front page. If they were not, he threatened to "cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, until I end up with a dozen people over the weekend." The Chronicle published its third of the cryptogram inside the August 2nd edition. In the accompanying article, Vallejo Police Chief Jack E. Stiltz said, "We're not satisfied that

Zodiac Killer - Misplaced Pages Continue

2880-453: Is the use of multiple names for the same data location. More sophisticated cryptographic systems, such as anonymous digital credentials , enable users to communicate pseudonymously ( i.e. , by identifying themselves by means of pseudonyms). In well-defined abuse cases, a designated authority may be able to revoke the pseudonyms and reveal the individuals' real identity. Use of pseudonyms is common among professional eSports players, despite

2970-506: Is their IP address , which can, in many cases, easily be linked to them. Other registered users prefer to remain anonymous, and do not disclose identifying information. However, in certain cases, Misplaced Pages's privacy policy permits system administrators to consult the server logs to determine the IP address, and perhaps the true name, of a registered user. It is possible, in theory, to create an unlinkable Misplaced Pages pseudonym by using an Open proxy ,

3060-712: Is uncertain, but the privacy risks are expected to grow with improved analytic techniques and text corpora . Authors may practice adversarial stylometry to resist such identification. Businesspersons of ethnic minorities in some parts of the world are sometimes advised by an employer to use a pseudonym that is common or acceptable in that area when conducting business, to overcome racial or religious bias. Criminals may use aliases, fictitious business names , and dummy corporations ( corporate shells ) to hide their identity, or to impersonate other persons or entities in order to commit fraud. Aliases and fictitious business names used for dummy corporations may become so complex that, in

3150-449: The [REDACTED] symbol on Hartnell's car door with a black felt-tip pen and wrote beneath it: Vallejo 12-20-68 7-4-69 Sept 27–69–6:30 by knife After hearing the victims' screams, a fisherman and his son sought help. Hartnell untied Shepard's ropes with his teeth, and she freed him. Two park rangers arrived and tended to the stricken couple until the ambulance arrived. Napa County deputies Dave Collins and Ray Land responded to

3240-539: The American Civil Liberties Union believe that Internet users deserve stronger pseudonymity so that they can protect themselves against identity theft, illegal government surveillance, stalking, and other unwelcome consequences of Internet use (including unintentional disclosures of their personal information and doxing , as discussed in the next section). Their views are supported by laws in some nations (such as Canada) that guarantee citizens

3330-537: The Associated Press that Zodiac's letters were an "ego game". He believed the killer lived in the San Francisco Bay Area , "He's a weekend killer. Why can't he get away Monday through Thursday? Does his job keep him close to home? I would speculate he maybe has a menial job, is well thought of and blends into the crowd...I think he's quite intelligent and better educated than someone who misspells words as frequently as he does in his letters." After working on

3420-559: The Guinness Brewery . Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym of a still unknown author or authors' group behind a white paper about bitcoin . In Ancien Régime France, a nom de guerre ( French pronunciation: [nɔ̃ də ɡɛʁ] , "war name") would be adopted by each new recruit (or assigned to them by the captain of their company) as they enlisted in the French army. These pseudonyms had an official character and were

3510-521: The Presidio army base. They pulled alongside the man and asked if he had seen anything suspicious. The man confirmed he had seen someone waving a gun and heading east. The officers hurried away. The Zodiac later claimed he was the witness that spoke to the two officers. When police arrived at the scene, Stine was declared dead. SFPD canvassed the area, including the Presidio. The Zodiac had probably fled

3600-456: The SAS and similar units of resistance fighters , terrorists, and guerrillas . This practice hides their identities and may protect their families from reprisals; it may also be a form of dissociation from domestic life. Some well-known men who adopted noms de guerre include Carlos, for Ilich Ramírez Sánchez ; Willy Brandt , Chancellor of West Germany ; and Subcomandante Marcos , spokesman of

3690-905: The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). During Lehi 's underground fight against the British in Mandatory Palestine , the organization's commander Yitzchak Shamir (later Prime Minister of Israel) adopted the nom de guerre "Michael", in honour of Ireland's Michael Collins . Pseudonym was also stylized as suedonim in a common misspelling of the original word so as to preserve the price of telegrams in World War I and II. Revolutionaries and resistance leaders, such as Lenin , Stalin , Trotsky , Golda Meir , Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque , and Josip Broz Tito , often adopted their noms de guerre as their proper names after

Zodiac Killer - Misplaced Pages Continue

3780-519: The city of San Francisco proper. He attacked three young couples and a lone male cab driver. Two of these victims survived. The Zodiac coined his name in a series of taunting messages that he mailed to regional newspapers, in which he threatened killing sprees and bombings if they were not printed. He also said that he was collecting his victims as slaves for the afterlife . He included four cryptograms or ciphers in his correspondence. Two were solved in 1969 and 2020, and two remain unsolved. In 1974,

3870-419: The online disinhibition effect ) as opposed to being completely anonymous. In contrast, research by the blog comment hosting service Disqus found pseudonymous users contributed the "highest quantity and quality of comments", where "quality" is based on an aggregate of likes, replies, flags, spam reports, and comment deletions, and found that users trusted pseudonyms and real names equally. Researchers at

3960-681: The FBI's Cryptographic and Racketeering Records Unit, which verified the decryption and concluded the decoded message gave no further clues to the Zodiac's identity. Subsequent analysis confirmed the Z340 decryption using unicity distance as a measure. Pseudonym Pseudonyms include stage names , user names , ring names , pen names , aliases, superhero or villain identities and code names, gamer identifications, and regnal names of emperors, popes, and other monarchs. In some cases, it may also include nicknames . Historically, they have sometimes taken

4050-554: The French-language phrase nom de plume (which in French literally means "pen name"). The concept of pseudonymity has a long history. In ancient literature it was common to write in the name of a famous person, not for concealment or with any intention of deceit; in the New Testament, the second letter of Peter is probably such. A more modern example is all of The Federalist Papers , which were signed by Publius,

4140-462: The Internet, nobody knows that yesterday you were a dog, and therefore should be in the doghouse today." Users of Internet communities who have been banned only to return with new identities are called sock puppets . Whitewashing is one specific form of a Sybil attack on distributed systems. The social cost of cheaply discarded pseudonyms is that experienced users lose confidence in new users, and may subject new users to abuse until they establish

4230-509: The KKK, wrote Western books under a fictional Cherokee persona to imply legitimacy and conceal his history. A famous case in French literature was Romain Gary . Already a well-known writer, he started publishing books as Émile Ajar to test whether his new books would be well received on their own merits, without the aid of his established reputation. They were: Émile Ajar, like Romain Gary before him,

4320-817: The University of Cambridge showed that pseudonymous comments tended to be more substantive and engaged with other users in explanations, justifications, and chains of argument, and less likely to use insults, than either fully anonymous or real name comments. Proposals have been made to raise the costs of obtaining new identities, such as by charging a small fee or requiring e-mail confirmation. Academic research has proposed cryptographic methods to pseudonymize social media identities or government-issued identities, to accrue and use anonymous reputation in online forums, or to obtain one-per-person and hence less readily-discardable pseudonyms periodically at physical-world pseudonym parties . Others point out that Misplaced Pages's success

4410-545: The Z408 cipher. On August 5th, it was cracked by Donald and Bettye Harden, a couple in Salinas . Neither was a cryptologist. Bettye deployed a crib by correctly guessing the word "kill" would appear in the message. The message was rife with misspellings and referred to Richard Connell 's 1924 short story " The Most Dangerous Game ". The Zodiac explained killing was a way of collecting slaves for his afterlife . The full text of

4500-822: The Zodiac Killer in California . Five victims were killed during these attacks, and two survived: From 1969 to 1974, the Zodiac mailed heavily misspelled letters and ciphers to law enforcement and media outlets. Some letters began, "This is the Zodiac speaking" and were signed with a symbol resembling the crosshairs of a gunsight : [REDACTED] . Four of the mailings had a cryptogram enclosed. Two have been solved, in 1969 and 2020. The letters were postmarked in San Francisco and Pleasanton . The Zodiac's confirmed correspondence with date, recipient, and incipit : The first murders retroactively attributed to

4590-557: The Zodiac case for seven years, Toschi started writing anonymous letters praising his own investigative work to Chronicle columnist Armistead Maupin . Two years later in 1978, Toschi was removed from the case and demoted to pawn shop detail. He expressed regret for the hoax. That same year, Maupin also received a purported Zodiac letter. SFPD investigated whether Toschi wrote it as well and concluded he did not. On October 22, 1969, mental patient Eric Weill duped attorney Melvin Belli into

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4680-528: The Zodiac claimed 37 victims in his last confirmed letter. This tally included victims in Southern California such as Cheri Jo Bates , who was murdered in Riverside in 1966. Despite many theories about the Zodiac's identity, the only suspect authorities ever named was Arthur Leigh Allen , a former elementary school teacher and convicted sex offender who died in 1992. The unusual nature of

4770-411: The Zodiac made Shepard bind Hartnell with precut lengths of plastic clothesline. He tightened Hartnell's bonds because Shepard's knots were too loose. Hartnell still believed they were being robbed when the Zodiac drew a knife and stabbed them. Hartnell suffered six wounds and Shepard ten. The Zodiac hiked 500 yards to Knoxville Road, leaving several footprints for investigators to study. The killer drew

4860-755: The Zodiac mailed a card with a 340-character cryptogram ( Z340 ) to the San Francisco Chronicle . He asked for his code to printed on the front page. It remained unsolved for 51 years. One cryptologist ranked Zodiac's unsolved ciphers second only to the Voynich manuscript . Zodiac ciphers were crowdsourced through a variety of websites, which led to gradual breakthroughs. Z340 was deciphered by an international team of private citizens on December 5, 2020. The cryptology group included American software engineer David Oranchak, Australian mathematician Sam Blake and Belgian programmer Jarl Van Eycke. Using

4950-503: The Zodiac was tending to the cab, the kids called the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). They described the criminal as a "husky" white man in a "dark or black jacket". The dispatcher mistakenly alerted SFPD that the suspect was Black . Just two minutes after the call to SFPD, two nearby patrol officers responded to the radio dispatch. They encountered a white man in dark clothes walking north towards

5040-480: The Zodiac were the shootings of high school students Betty Lou Jensen (16) and David Arthur Faraday (17) on December 20, 1968. Faraday was a student at Vallejo High School , while Jensen was a student Hogan High School. At 8:30 p.m. Faraday picked up Jensen, and the couple visited one of Jensen's friends. Sometime after 9 p.m., they drove to the outskirts of Vallejo and parked at a lover's lane on Lake Herman Road, just inside Benicia city limits. Between 10:15–30 p.m.,

5130-502: The area in a car by then. Police assumed the murder was a result of the robbery. However, the Zodiac mailed a bloody piece of Paul Stine's shirt to the San Francisco Chronicle on October 13. He enclosed it in a letter where he boasted about the murder and claimed to have clandestinely watched the SFPD search for him. The Zodiac also threatened to shoot a tire on a school bus and kill children as they exited. The teenage witnesses helped

5220-517: The attacks in Vallejo. The three letters were nearly identical and began, "I am the killer of the 2 teenagers last Christmass at Lake Herman & the girl last 4th of July ." The three letters were rife with misspellings and presented the first definitive link between the two separate attacks in Vallejo. Enclosed in all three letters was a different cryptogram . They combined to form a 408-symbol cipher ( Z408 ). The writer claimed, "In this cipher

5310-623: The author's true identity being discovered, as with Elena Ferrante and Torsten Krol . Joanne Rowling published the Harry Potter series as J. K. Rowling. Rowling also published the Cormoran Strike series of detective novels including The Cuckoo's Calling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Winston Churchill wrote as Winston S. Churchill (from his full surname Spencer Churchill which he did not otherwise use) in an attempt to avoid confusion with an American novelist of

5400-631: The books related to people of their neighbourhood. Anne Brontë 's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) was published under the name Acton Bell, while Charlotte Brontë used the name Currer Bell for Jane Eyre (1847) and Shirley (1849), and Emily Brontë adopted Ellis Bell as cover for Wuthering Heights (1847). Other examples from the nineteenth-century are novelist Mary Ann Evans ( George Eliot ) and French writer Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin ( George Sand ). Pseudonyms may also be used due to cultural or organization or political prejudices. Similarly, some 20th- and 21st-century male romance novelists –

5490-438: The car, but his door handle was missing or removed. The assailant returned to his car, opened the door, and did something Mageau could not see. As Mageau struggled to exit the vehicle, the stranger shot him and Ferrin two more times each. The killer hurried into his car and drove off. A golf course caretaker heard the shots around 12:10 a.m. The perpetrator left no clues that could be traced back to him. Three teenagers drove into

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5580-531: The case led to international interest that has been sustained throughout the years. The San Francisco Police Department marked the case "inactive" in 2004 but re-opened it prior to 2007. The case also remains open in the California Department of Justice , Federal Bureau of Investigation , the city of Vallejo, as well as in Napa and Solano counties. Investigators agree on four confirmed attacks by

5670-543: The co-authors of a work, such as Carolyn Keene , Erin Hunter , Ellery Queen , Nicolas Bourbaki , or James S. A. Corey . The term pseudonym is derived from the Greek word " ψευδώνυμον " ( pseudṓnymon ), literally "false name", from ψεῦδος ( pseûdos ) 'lie, falsehood' and ὄνομα ( ónoma ) "name". The term alias is a Latin adverb meaning "at another time, elsewhere". Sometimes people change their names in such

5760-501: The crime scene to a car wash in downtown Napa . He used a payphone to call the Napa County Sheriff's Department at 7:40 p.m. He told the dispatcher he wished to "report a murder – no, a double murder" and confessed to the crime. He did not hang up the phone. KVON radio reporter Pat Stanley found the phone off the hook a few minutes later. The payphone was located a few blocks from the sheriff's office. Detectives lifted

5850-469: The current state of Web security engineering, their true names may be revealed at any time. Pseudonymity is an important component of the reputation systems found in online auction services (such as eBay ), discussion sites (such as Slashdot ), and collaborative knowledge development sites (such as Misplaced Pages ). A pseudonymous user who has acquired a favorable reputation gains the trust of other users. When users believe that they will be rewarded by acquiring

5940-554: The decoded Z408 cipher reads: "I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing wild game in the forrest because man is the most dangeroue anamal of all to kill something gives me the most thrilling experence it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl the best part of it is thae when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the I have killed will become my slaves I will not give you my name because you will try to sloi down or atop my collectiog of slaves for my afterlife ebeorietemethhpiti" VPD asked

6030-480: The direction of Lake Herman Road. Shortly before midnight, she turned her car into an empty parking lot at Blue Rock Springs Park. This was another lover's lane, located just two miles from Lake Herman Road. Ferrin either parked or stalled 70 feet from the lot entrance. Another vehicle parked about 80 feet to their left. The driver turned his headlights off and sat motionless. Mageau asked who the driver was. Ferrin told him not to worry. The stranger abruptly tore away from

6120-420: The fact that many professional games are played on LAN . Pseudonymity has become an important phenomenon on the Internet and other computer networks. In computer networks, pseudonyms possess varying degrees of anonymity, ranging from highly linkable public pseudonyms (the link between the pseudonym and a human being is publicly known or easy to discover), potentially linkable non-public pseudonyms (the link

6210-728: The form of anagrams , Graecisms, and Latinisations . Pseudonyms should not be confused with new names that replace old ones and become the individual's full-time name. Pseudonyms are "part-time" names, used only in certain contexts: to provide a more clear-cut separation between one's private and professional lives, to showcase or enhance a particular persona, or to hide an individual's real identity, as with writers' pen names, graffiti artists' tags, resistance fighters' or terrorists' noms de guerre , computer hackers ' handles , and other online identities for services such as social media , online gaming , and internet forums . Actors, musicians, and other performers sometimes use stage names for

6300-531: The form of a teknonym , either literal or figurative. Such war names have also been used in Africa. Part of the molding of child soldiers has included giving them such names. They were also used by fighters in the People's Liberation Army of Namibia , with some fighters retaining these names as their permanent names. Individuals using a computer online may adopt or be required to use a form of pseudonym known as

6390-591: The golf course caretaker. Regarding the Lake Herman Road attack, he revealed that he had taped a flashlight to his gun in order to aim easily in the dark. The August 4th letter also referred investigators back to the Z408 cipher. The killer wrote, "when they do crack it they will have me". The decoded message did not reveal the Zodiac's identity. Both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attempted to decrypt

6480-534: The hospital, he stated he did not know the murderer. At another point, he said the assailant's name was "Richard". Ferrin's sister claimed one of Darlene's boyfriends was named Richard. Linda also reported receiving annual phone calls on the Fourth of July from someone who identified himself as the Zodiac. In the Zodiac's later correspondence, he only ever refers to Ferrin as "girl". In Graysmith's telling, Ferrin and Mageau were chased. They only stopped when their car hit

6570-432: The image to other potential witnesses. The suspect was described as being roughly 6' tall and weighing 200 pounds, which matched the descriptions by Shepard and Hartnell. Graysmith also drew a sketch of the Zodiac's costume after Hartnell described it to him. Napa County detective Ken Narlow was assigned to the case from the outset and worked on solving the crime until his retirement in 1987. The Zodiac drove 27 miles from

6660-485: The killer asked to be driven another block. At Washington and Cherry around 9:55 p.m., the Zodiac shot Stine in the head with a handgun and took his wallet and car keys. Three teenagers witnessed the crime from a house directly across the street from Stine's cab. The Zodiac's face was clearly visible by streetlight. The teenagers watched as the Zodiac wiped down the vehicle and rifled through Stine's clothes. He left behind two partial fingerprints from his right hand. While

6750-627: The letter was written by the murderer". He requested the killer send more facts to prove his identity. On August 4, the Examiner received a letter with the salutation, "Dear Editor This is the Zodiac speaking." This letter marked the debut of the Zodiac persona. It was the first time the killer called himself by this nickname. In this second letter to the media, the killer wrote at much greater length. He happily obliged Chief Stiltz's request for more information about both murders. He provided minute details about how he shot Michael Mageau. He described

6840-404: The papers. There are also examples of modern politicians and high-ranking bureaucrats writing under pseudonyms. Some female authors have used male pen names, in particular in the 19th century, when writing was a highly male-dominated profession. The Brontë sisters used pen names for their early work, so as not to reveal their gender (see below) and so that local residents would not suspect that

6930-425: The parked couple. Five minutes later, the stranger returned, parked a few feet next to Mageau's side of the car and got out. He shone a flashlight into Ferrin's car as he approached. Assuming he was a police officer, the couple rolled down Mageau's window. Without speaking, the stranger fired a 9mm pistol into the car. One bullet hit Mageau in the right arm, and the other hit Ferrin in the neck. Mageau tried to leave

7020-422: The parking lot, saw the wounded couple, and got help. Police arrived at 12:20 a.m. Twenty minutes later, Ferrin was pronounced dead at the hospital. Mageau survived and described the attacker as a heavyset white man, around 5'8" tall. He estimated the assailant's weight as 195–200 pounds, with a large face and curly light brown hair. The killer wore dark clothes and no glasses. These details were not enough to develop

7110-432: The predecessor of identification numbers : soldiers were identified by their first names, their family names, and their noms de guerre (e. g. Jean Amarault dit Lafidélité ). These pseudonyms were usually related to the soldier's place of origin (e. g. Jean Deslandes dit Champigny , for a soldier coming from a town named Champigny ), or to a particular physical or personal trait (e. g. Antoine Bonnet dit Prettaboire , for

7200-476: The report of the attack. Shepard was conscious and gave a detailed description of their attacker. She and Hartnell were taken to a hospital in Napa . Shepard lapsed into a coma during transport; she never regained consciousness and died two days later. Hartnell survived to recount his tale to the press. Earlier that day, a suspicious man had been seen around Lake Berryessa by several people. A dentist and his son saw

7290-614: The romance writer Nora Roberts writes mystery novels under the name J. D. Robb . In some cases, an author may become better known by his pen name than their real name. Some famous examples of that include Samuel Clemens, writing as Mark Twain , Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss , and Eric Arthur Blair ( George Orwell ). The British mathematician Charles Dodgson wrote fantasy novels as Lewis Carroll and mathematical treatises under his own name. Some authors, such as Harold Robbins , use several literary pseudonyms. Some pen names have been used for long periods, even decades, without

7380-478: The same name . The attempt was not wholly successful – the two are still sometimes confused by booksellers. A pen name may be used specifically to hide the identity of the author, as with exposé books about espionage or crime, or explicit erotic fiction. Erwin von Busse used a pseudonym when he published short stories about sexually charged encounters between men in Germany in 1920. Some prolific authors adopt

7470-482: The seven months between the attacks on Lake Herman Road and at Blue Rock Springs was a "cooling off period" for the Zodiac. Many have speculated that Darlene Ferrin knew her killer. Kelleher and Nuys credit the origin of the theory to Robert Graysmith 's 1986 book Zodiac . He argued extensively for a connection based on interviews with Ferrin's friends. A definitive connection has not been proven. Mageau gave conflicting accounts on whether Ferrin knew her killer. At

7560-427: The shots hit Faraday and Jensen. The couple scrambled to get out through the passenger door. Jensen succeeded. As Faraday was exiting, the killer shot him in the head with a .22-caliber rifle. The assailant chased Jensen as she fled, firing six shots at her back. Only one missed. Police theorized the whole attack took two to three minutes. At 11:10 p.m., a motorist spotted the couple's bodies and alerted police. Jensen

7650-588: The struggle. George Grivas , the Greek-Cypriot EOKA militant, adopted the nom de guerre Digenis (Διγενής). In the French Foreign Legion , recruits can adopt a pseudonym to break with their past lives. Mercenaries have long used "noms de guerre", sometimes even multiple identities, depending on the country, conflict, and circumstance. Some of the most familiar noms de guerre today are the kunya used by Islamic mujahideen . These take

7740-459: The words of The Washington Post , "getting to the truth requires a walk down a bizarre labyrinth" and multiple government agencies may become involved to uncover the truth. Giving a false name to a law enforcement officer is a crime in many jurisdictions; see identity fraud . A pen name is a pseudonym (sometimes a particular form of the real name) adopted by an author (or on the author's behalf by their publishers). English usage also includes

7830-556: Was also familiar with Lake Herman Road's status as a lover's lane. There is a picture of Ferrin and an unknown man who closely resembles a composite sketch of the Zodiac. In a 2011 episode of America's Most Wanted , police stated they believe the photo was taken in San Francisco in either 1966 or 1967. See: Zodiac Letters On August 1, 1969, the Vallejo Times , San Francisco Chronicle , and San Francisco Examiner all received letters written by someone taking credit for

7920-436: Was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt by a jury unaware that they were the same person. Similarly, TV actor Ronnie Barker submitted comedy material under the name Gerald Wiley. A collective pseudonym may represent an entire publishing house, or any contributor to a long-running series, especially with juvenile literature. Examples include Watty Piper , Victor Appleton , Erin Hunter , and Kamiru M. Xhan. Another use of

8010-434: Was dead. Faraday was still breathing. He died at the hospital. There were no witnesses and no usable tire or foot prints. The only motive the police could deduce was a "madman" wanting to kill. Despite an intense investigation in the following months, no viable suspects emerged. The murders were extensively covered by the media. Darlene Ferrin (22) and Michael Mageau (19) were shot shortly after midnight on July 4, 1969. Ferrin

8100-416: Was popular in Vallejo due to her job at a local restaurant, where she met Mageau. On July 4, they went on a date despite the fact that Ferrin was married. After 11:30 p.m., Ferrin received a phone call at her house. She arrived at Mageau's house around 11:50 p.m. Immediately after leaving Mageau's house, the couple noticed they were being followed by a man in a light-colored car. Ferrin drove out of Vallejo in

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