Re: VMs: some thoughts/observations

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi William,

At 19:10 20/02/2004 +0000, William Edmondson wrote:
> 3/ forgery/fake in the sense that it is readable if you know the key, but 
> probably banal/meaningless in actual content.  It is trying to look 
> important/significant to convince someone, and might even be readable 
> aloud by the author..... but is actually content free other than pastiche 
> of alchemical stuff at the time.
>
> I favour 3.

Why would someone bother with this? When Trithemius wanted nonsense 
ciphertext, he just used nonsense plaintext. But he didn't feel the need to 
write 200+ pages of it to prove that he'd mastered his art. I think that 
your "forgery/fake" category is trying to finesse a position between code 
and hoax that might exist for smaller cipher manuscripts, but which is 
extremely unlikely for the VMs itself.

And why pastiche "alchemical stuff" without any alchemical diagrams, indeed 
without anything remotely pointing to an alchemical mindset? AFAICR, Adam 
McLean can't see anything remotely alchemical about the VMs as we see it 
today - and his opinion on anything to do with alchemy is pretty much good 
enough for me. :-)

> I am really puzzled that its form is not bothering more people.  But it 
> does present a decipherment challenge.

"Form" could be interpreted at many different levels - what do you actually 
mean by it here?

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


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