Re: VMs: Conclusions

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Chris,

> YES BUT WHAT ABOUT HIDDEN MESSAGES ?
>  Not likely, very, very not likely, If I want to hide a message I hide it
> in something that looks like an informal letter or a shopping list, not a
> strange and fantastic document that invites scrutiny!

Well, OK - but why would someone roughly 500 years ago have thought the 
same as you?

Perhaps that simply points to its not having been intended for public 
examination? :-)

> As for codes or
> ciphers - it doesn't match any known method except for the completely
> unlikely eg. if you read the eleventh and twenty-ninth letter of this
> example it says 'hy' which could mean hi, a common form of greeting in the
> early 21st century. I'm not convinced that the sentence was a secret code
>  - are you? Yes, it is possible that it is some form of highly unusal
> encoding scheme but there is no reason to suspect that it is, and
> impossible to prove or disprove.

The VMS has a number of structural similarities to pair ciphers circa 1450: 
more particularly, I think it is suggestive of a pair cipher encoding 
vowel-less text (with the vowel-like half typically preceding the 
non-vowel-like half, to confuse the issue). When I get round to it, I plan 
to try to test this idea rigorously against some likely-looking texts to 
see how far it gets (this doesn't appear to have been carried out in the past).

Sure, this might be thought of as a "highly unusual coding scheme" - but 
it's made up out of elements known to crypto practitioners. Also, the VMS 
is probably the largest fully encoded manuscript out there by quite some 
margin (please correct me if I'm wrong!), so arguing by precedent may not 
be ~entirely~ applicable here.

>  It is also possible that by applying the
> right algorithm to the text you are reading now you will find that it is
> really the location of a downed UFO encoded  - not impossible, just very,
> very unlikely.

...or it might simply be a very interesting herbal written in code - so 
this doesn't quite amount to a reductio ad absurdam proof of impossibility. :-)

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


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