Re: Re: VMs: Criteria for a successful solution

["Jan" <hurychj@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello, Elmar,

======= At 2004-08-16, 15:24:00 you wrote: =======

>But if we assume that the VM wasn't written much later than 1600, and if we 
>encounter an algorithm which includes, say, the orbital parameters of the 
>planet Uranus, which was only discovered much later, or requires a modern-day 
>computer's calculating power, we should be very wary of this explanation.

The probability of this happening (and that being the right solution)  is probably nil, unless we have a hoax at hand. So when that happens, the solution may be still valid, but not the VM.  That is of course  not our priority right now and nobody in sound mind would propose that. On the other hand, I would not  eliminate enciphering methods we think were discovered somehow later  without any  proof that 
the author did  not know them or could not invent them. After  all, the time in question was pregnant with new ideas in cryptography.

> I can understand 
>why somebody would use a "lossy" algorithm (like cutting out vowels, 
>transposing letters etc.), but that'd still allow a "recovery" of the original 
>text.

Not entirely: "rm" can mean Rome, room, etc.  That's where some solutions miss the point: imagine three such words in one sentence a you can get anything weird, but fitting somebody's ideas what should be there.  My question is: can we a  priori eliminate such "solution"?  What if the author considered  the readers who knew that some combinations are simply invalid to the subject? What if he wanted to make it that way even more obscure to the  others? My answer is "probably not", of course.
 
>Three answers:
>
>a) There are some sections in the VM which have been considered candidates 
>for "clues". If not the algorithm, they might at least contain keys to decode 
>the message. (The most prominent of these is the "oladabas..." sentence on the 
>last page.)
>
>b) The algorithm may be simple enough to be kept in your head.
>
>c) There might have been a reference manual somewhere, kept apart from the VM.
>
>Pretty obviously the encoding was used to keep the readership limited, and to 
>keep the potential audience small. (Perhaps even as small as 1, namely the 
>author himself -- in case the VM was something like his personal notebook.)

Exactly. I also proposed the notebook (I called it workbook) idea - say scientist who wanted to record (and hide at the same time) his discoveries, at least for the time being.  I believe that if it was so, the author still had in mind the possibility to tell somebody how to decode it.  Based on that, I prefer thinking about it like being perfectly readable unambiguous encoding.

Note: I do not argue with the rules, but as Rene said, they are conditional a the conditions should be clarified as well. The reason I was asking those questions at the first place was to establish which  points were most difficult to satisfy in the past a what can we do to satisfy them in the future.  

Jan


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