VMs: Re: Qoteedy nine

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

10/09/02 16:22:39, Dennis <tsalagi@xxxxxxxx> puzzles:

>	I had thought that the origins of the VMs script had 
>been settled:

>1)  Latin abbreviations and early Arabic numerals, from
>D'Imperio
>as you noted;

>2)  Late 15th Renaissance cipher symbols, like those
>listed
>by Trandechino; and 

>3)  The gallows embellishments seen in a few medieval
>Ms.

>	I must confess that I haven't followed the shorthand
>discussion.  What does shorthand add/detract from my
>list above?

Let us grant that it _is_ a shorthand system. A shorthand
system is a compression algorithm. The entropy of a compressed
message is much greater than that of the same message,
uncompressed (take a look at a zip file; if you like, 
uu-encode it and have MONKEY calculate its entropy).

The entropy of the VMs is very low. Therefore, if it is
a shorthand, the shorthand is hidden inside a low-entropy
text--perhaps glossolalia. 

So then, it is a steganographic cipher. Therefore,
it is undecipherable -- think of the "Bible Code",
think of Newbolde.