Re: VMs: For Nick Pelling

["Jeff" <jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nick Pelling incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote

> Hi everyone,
>
> At 23:16 06/11/2003 +0000, Jeff wrote:
> >I am now 95% sure I know how the VMS was done. I need to do a little
further
> >analysis and I'll be 100% sure. I am sure it is Italian and not multiple
> >languages. I made a fundamental misjudgement in analysing my results! I
> >believe you are right about the origins, but don't hold your breath. If
the
> >next couple of tests don't pan out then I'm back to the drawing board!
>
> That's funny - while I'm now 95% sure of the author(s), the place, the
> context, the pre-history, the culture, the language, and even the contents
> of the VMs (sadly, I think you'll find that most of it isn't *hugely*
> interesting), I'm only 25% sure of *the why*, and only 15% sure of *the
how*.
>
> My sequence of inferences on the VMs' "how"-side:-
> (1) because of the presence of "4" and "4o" in the cipherbet (and their
> appearance in Tristano Sforza's personal cipher of 1450, and Orfeo da
> Rycavo's 1455 cipher), I believe that the VMs is enciphered (probably
after
> 1455, & probably by the same code-maker)
> (2) because of the thinness of the VMs' vellum (and from Sergio
Toresella's
> observations), I believe that it is a copy of other pre-existing
manuscript(s)
> (3) because of the matching top-left indent on f112r and f112v, I believe
> that the plaintext and ciphertext are matched line-for-line - that is, a
> line of plaintext codes as a line of ciphertext
> (4) because of the curious entropy profiles (as well as the presence of
> "4o", etc), I believe that a letter of plaintext does *not* code as a
> letter of plaintext - that is, it is a verbose cipher
> (5) because the individual letters are comfortably-spaced (and because of
> (3) and (4)), I believe that many of the plaintext letters have been
> removed (either by truncation or by contraction)
> (6) because many of the letters in the VMs' alphabet closely resemble
> "single-stroke" tachygraphic shorthand, and because abbreviation is
central
> to the only class of shorthand system (Radcliff's system) I can find
> evidence for in Europe after Tironian notes (and before Timothy Bright's
> "Characterie"), I believe that at least part of the systematic production
> of the VMs' ciphertext involved the use of shorthand.
>
> If - as I believe - what we're looking at in the VMs is not just
enciphered
> text but an enciphered shorthand, we have two (heavily overlapping)
> problems, both contributing to the apparent intractability of the whole
> problem:-
>          (a) identify the shorthand
>          (b) identify the cipher system
>
> The problem with (a) is that all my best researches into the history of
> Quattrocento shorthand have revealed almost nothing useful - though it
> existed (and was in active use), because it was almost always taken down
> onto wax tablets (the stenographer's notepads of the day), it was
> transient... and appears to have been lost into the noise of the distant
past.
>
> The problem with (b) is that the cipher system was almost certainly
> designed to hide (or rather, to obfuscate) *not* the statistics of normal
> language, but the statistics of a (now unknown) shorthand. I think this is
> the observational step most crypto people may have overlooked with the
VMs,
> probably seduced by the apparent (though deceptive) simplicity of its
alphabet.
>
> FWIW, this is just about as far as I'm comfortable with taking this line
of
> reasoning ATM - everything else seems to rest on one's own interpretation
> of statistics... but beware! The VMs delights in making even the wisest
> statistical analysis of last night seem (in the cold light of morning)
like
> so much drunken foolishness. I'm sure just about everyone here will attest
> to this. :-(
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>
>

I have left behind the statistics and am now using observation and deductive
reasoning. There is a huge flaw in the method used that leaves a back door
into the solution. That is all I will say for now. See my message titled
partial decryption tests.

Jeff


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