Re: Re: VMs: Criteria for a successful solution

[Koontz John E <John.Koontz@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 16 Aug 2004, Jan wrote:
> Again, I repeat what I said in response to Elmar: by finding which
> points were the most difficult to satisfy, we may be able to focus on
> them. I consider Grant's idea quite intriguing: why it was so easy to
> encode the VM ( judging by smooth handwriting in the VM and no apparent
> mistakes, returns, crossings etc.)  and so difficult to decode it?
> What does it tell us? I wish I know :-).

I can think of several solutions to this last enigma, which I think has
been commented on here and there.

- If it's gibberish, it's impossible to make a mistake, although this
argument works less well in the face of "constructed gibberish."  Against
this, I think it's felt, e.g., by Rugg, that if it is gibberish, it is
highly constructed gibberish.

- The VMs a is a clear copy, or a second copy, most likely by the original
author(s), since a latter day copiest would be less practiced (at first),
resulting in errors and awkwardly formed letters.

- A third possibility is that the text is not elaborately enciphered, but
only encoded in a script based on somewhat novel and obscure principles
with the possible addition of such obscuring techniques as can be applied
on the fly mentally, e.g., pig latin-like transformations or use of a
memorized set of indices into a key.  In short, the author(s) wrote
exactly what they wanted, with only hesitations over wording, and, after a
little practice, could qeadror thedy qextol ackbor asdy esiredol ithoutwor
ecialspol qeffortain.  Not claiming this is the scheme, of course.  I
mention "language games" transformation only because they are the sort of
thing you can do quickly on the fly.  Well, not me, but some people can.

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