Re: W-Hypothesis - maybe the P-hypothesis?

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Bernd,

> I would like to announce the birth of yet another Voynich MS hypothesis:
> the W-hypothesis (Voynich-Vigenere = V V = W) :-)

According to...
        http://raphael.math.uic.edu/~jeremy/crypt/contrib/deepak.html
.....when Vigenere moved to work in Rome...

        People were talking about a book by a doctor and mathmaticain
        named J.B. Porter. His book and contianed the most accurate
        frequency tables ever published. His method of writing a cipher
        was a substitution, "...in which a given letter might be enciphered
        with any one of eleven different letters, and in which a single
        letter of the cryptogram might represent any one of eleven
        different letters of the clear [plain text]" (Pratt, 119). Like so
        many others, Porter's unbreakable ciphers were theoretically
        perfect but operationally impractical. His system demanded
        key-tables that were carried around by the sender and the
        receiver. Errors in encryption were also easily made. Though
        his system was not used very much, his book earned him the
        title of "father of modern cryptography".

The reference is to Fletcher Pratt's 1939 book "Secret and Urgent", Blue 
Ribbon Books, New York. Has anyone read this book, or got any further 
references on JB Porter?

My VMS state machine analysis seemed to indicate roughly 10 (basically 
gallows-related) states, which would seem to be closer in structure to 
Porter than to Vigenere. I know that's a looong way from proof, but 
Vigenere was born 1523, so Porter probably preceded him (?): I point all 
this out in case you should really be talking about a P-Hypothesis (for 
Porter). :-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

PS: It'll take me a while to plough through Vigenere's text - my schoolboy 
French was so much better back when I was a schoolboy. :-0

PPS: Google returns five matches for "father of modern cryptography", all 
of them different - David Kahn, Johannes Trithemius, Whitfield Diffie, J B 
Porter, and al-Kindi. :-)