VMs: Re: Is VMS unique - Was: Folio and Quire numbers

["Jeff" <jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

PK#01 pklist01@xxxxxxxxx wrote
On 04 April 2004 08:12


> IMHO VMS is unique. I've been making a loose and informal inventory of old
> crypto methods and I've found examples from France, England, Italy,
Germany,
> Bohemia, and the Dutch Republic. All these methods are pretty standard and
> would have been cracked by now.
>
> The fact that the VMS has not been cracked could point to a complex mix of
> crypto methods. But I've found no evidence yet that such mixes were in use
> in 1400 -1700.
>

It is NOT a mix of crypto methods!

> I know Nick's "adapted shorthand" theory and I hope he can crack the VMS
> that way, but the examples I've seen of shorthand and wax tablet writing
> didn't look very VMS-like.
>

Nick has some good ideas and they are founded in a lot of research. He is
almost right.

> The statistics of the VMS don't point to any common language. So cleartext
> doesn't seem an option.
>

It is based in common language DEFINATELY!

> In this way the VMS is unique and we've been stuck in this situation for a
> long time.
>
> On the other hand all the evidence points to a West European provenance
and
> a period between 1400 - 1700. The VMS is clearly part of this culture,
it's
> not a stand-alone artifact.
>

I agree 100%

> While we've not made much progress in cracking the VMS, we've come to
> understand both it's weird and it's ordinary aspects much better. So in
one
> way we're going round in circles, but in another way we know the VMS
better
> than before.
>

I am not going round in circles! And I don't believe most people on this
list are either.
I have read some dicussions on list recently that are VERY interesting

> My personal guess is that the VMS is a one-off artifact like the (take
> cover!) Phaistos disk and by it's very nature unsolvable. AFAIK the
> provenance of "THAT disk" is better known than the provenance of the VMS.
At
> least it comes from a well documented archeological dig. Where the VMS
comes
> from we don't really know.
>
> NB: At the moment I'm reading (trying to read) a set of paleographic
> exercises to get a feel for old scripts. There is some (standard) crypto
in
> the exercises and I'll try to post it. It surprises me how much old Dutch
> writing looks like old Italian writing. At first sight is seems to have
been
> pretty standard all over Europe (but I might be pretty much wrong here).
>

This will help in some respects and not others.

You may believe my statements to be too confident. Well?

Jeff


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