[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: VMs: Re: Constellation of ciphers...



Hi Francois,

At 09:59 13/07/2003 +0200, you wrote:
We reason with our ideas of the XX century... !

FWIW, I'm trying very hard to keep to the XV century, thanks. :-)


The Vigenere's code was deciphered late (around the 19th century) and was
rather strong for most of people during centuries.
So why the author of VMs would encrypt strongly a text because, for example,
Vigenere's code is sufficient ?
Is there a reason the author use different and cumulative ciphers whereas
the result of the text wasn't  able a real thing. I explain me : if it is a
magical or a alchemical formula, it is not a real thing because it is only
an  idea for the people put back the effects of the Nature.
I don't think there are several ciphers. There is no truth to hide in the
VMs. The stars, plants/herbals, nymphs... haven't produced anything
*together*  in the daily life.
So why the author would use a complex code as any real result of his text
exists ? The code is simple or there is no code (so a hoax).

If the VMS predates Vigenere (as I believe it does, from other dating evidence), then using that (or similar codes) would not have been an option. I should perhaps repeat - I don't think the VMS is a complex (multi-stage) code, but rather a constellation of (probably 12) simple ciphers, each of which is designed to act in parallel to obscure one aspect of the overall statistics. Is that complex or is it simple?


Second thing : it seems there are hand A and hand B, with different layout
of letters. If the code was the same, it wouldn't have two sorts of text.

There are numerous possible simple explanations, such as: (a) one scribe was using two sizes of quill (b) two scribes were doing the copying (perhaps to divide the work up) This has been debated at length on-list.

But I agree, if a signal were transformed into noise (which is largely what GC was discussing with the Book of Soyga) in a modern (XX century) cryptographic paradigm, then we should see no difference anywhere.

The difference in statistics can hence be interpreted as supporting the idea of code-as-obscuration (XV century state of the art) over code-as-transformation (XVI century state of the art).

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

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


______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying: unsubscribe vms-list