Re: Re: VMs: KELLYWatch

["Jan" <hurychj@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Dennis,  
 
======= At 2004-07-24, 01:03:00 you wrote: =======

>	In fact I've been wondering about this.  I don't know 
much about Kelley, but he clearly did not have Dee's 
intellect.  Was he truly capable of producing something 
of the VMs' complexity, considering all involved in 
inventing the script, the ill-precedented drawings, and 
the "language"?
 
Bringing  Kelley as an  author of the VM is the weakest point of Mr. Rugg's  
hypothesis, based only on Kelley's poor "character reference" :-). It can be dismissed 
outright - the  probability of  finding some proof of Kelley's authorship is close to zero.

>	  	Also, I would not expect the rules of such a hoax to 
 be too complex.  The input might well be random, but 
the rules for a hoax might be fairly recoverable - if 
in fact it is a hoax. And that might be the best 
evidence that it is not in fact a hoax.


Right. The  reason for using  gibberish  as plaintext - actually  the only  reason given 
by Rugg  - is to save the time, so he better come up with very simple rules of 
encoding while still preserving the complex VM structure.   I do not believe it 
will be more than superficial agreement anyway :-).  Since VM rules do not vary 
too much from one folio  to another, swapping Cardan grills for different folios 
would not help and swapping them for one folio would be cumbersome and quite 
time consuming.

 Now there is however the other reason  not  mentioned by  Mr. Rugg: one CANNOT 
break the cipher if the plaintext is just  gibberish. I admit it does look tempting, 
but the skilled forger had to consider something else. For an "unreadable"  book 
he would not get too much, while demonstrating he can make a gold by using it 
will bring him  more money and for longer period of time :-).   The second option 
however has a hidden danger: after some period  of promises, he would have to reveal
at least a aprt of the decoded text to raise the fading hopes of his already skeptical employer. 
To make it really believable, he would have to  also  provide the method of cracking 
- at least for some part - which would be surely checked for veracity. Gibberish 
of course would  not do and we cannot credit the forger with rather sophisticated, 
premeditated design and at the same time with making such primitive mistake.

Either way, I do not see too much time saving by using gibberish as a plaintext. 
And one can surely make a hoax even using normal plaintext. But for Mr. Ruggs, 
the gibberish  is necessary to support his theory of a hoax, otherwise we could 
ask him to find the real plaintext. And in that case it would all fall through 
the grill (call  it Cardan or any  other name).
  
Jan



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