07-07-2026, 06:29 PM
Trying to create a cipher based on Roman numerals that would give a result similar to VMS, I came across the fact that even after all the manipulations with the text, it was not quite similar to Voynichese. But by adding various third-party rules, such as turning er into or in the right places, I gradually crept up on the most Voynich-like result.
I couldn't create an accurate algorithm that would immediately give me the desired result, no matter how much I wanted to (if anything, I made a cipher based on Roman numerals).
In the course of these attempts, I wondered how accurate the Voynichese itself was. How perfect and accurate is this algorithm from the point of view of cryptology? Is it an algorithm at all?
These questions call into question the usually unconditional "presumption of perfection" (my name for this cliche
), which is implied, in particular, by referring to the "scribe's mistake". For some reason, errors on the part of the author are often omitted.
One of the difficulties for analyzing Voynichese may be that it is not suitable for analysis as a cipher due to the lack of a clear encryption algorithm. By a clear algorithm, I mean a strictly defined and mathematically clear technique that gives and gives the same result (APPLE - GVVRK, the shift is 6; if I do the same with the word GVVRK, I get APPLE back). You can try to complicate this algorithm by adding non-mathematical rules. In the example with the Caesar cipher, I may want the first consonant to be I, the middle consonant is shifted by 2 again, and the final consonant is not encrypted. So I'll get GIXXRE from GVVRK. It became more difficult to determine the encryption algorithm and the specific substitution method that I used, the letters G and R, unaffected by my crazy rules, will not give me anything (I can shift them back to 6, there will be AIXXLE. Of course, although it's easy to guess the word APPLE, we may be confused by the two XX's in the middle and by the I. Or maybe it's not APPLE, but ACCEPT, but E is put at the end, C = X, and P and T are put in other places?). Briefly, we have the opportunity to blur the algorithm, making it difficult for a stranger to decipher it.
And now we ask ourselves the question - why should the Voynichese be a clear cipher? Why do we believe that the author was so brilliant and talented that he created a great undecipherable method unknown to science? In general, a person who is ignorant of cryptology is not expected to create the cleanest algorithm, but to use conditional substitution as a basis, having previously complicated it. There is nothing supernatural in the fact that Voynichese is unlike other ciphers of its time, because I can also mock an ordinary substitution to bring it to "perfection" without changing the algorithm itself. At this rate, I won't have any trouble, but...
By abusing these so-called "rules", I can't complicate the cipher, but distort it, making decryption difficult even for a person who knows the cipher, especially if these rules are unclear (for example, not "after every first consonant I", but "after some first consonants I"). In theory, it is possible to complicate the cipher so much that decryption will be a great challenge for the expert (that is, I will ruin it), which should not be.
And there's no guarantee that Voynichese is not a corrupted cipher. There's no guarantee that even with an algorithm, we will immediately decipher the entire manuscript without difficulty. It is possible that it is impossible to decipher Voynichese a priori (more precisely, it is possible, but the decoding will be incomplete). Perhaps that it's impossible to decrypt Voynichese a priori (or rather, it is possible, but the decryption will turn out to be incomplete) due to the fact that the author knew very little about the logic of ciphers and, without realizing it himself, made his possibly rather simple cipher very difficult to decrypt.
In general, questioning the presumption of perfection applies not only to cipher theory. Some linguistic hypotheses also depend on it, for example, Chinese theory, but to a lesser extent (most likely, the author was not a professional linguist, and his transcription of Chinese could be completely unreadable. Historical example: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for Armenian and, maybe, Hebrew, which requires knowledge of the language itself to read).
What are some historical examples of a "corrupted cipher"?
Codex Copiale (but here, rather, an example of a complicated substitution with the addition of zeros) and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (still not deciphered, but it is believed that this is a complicated Polybius square).
How did the owners read this manuscript?
By owners, I mean a team of people who understood what VMS was about and may have participated in its creation. In this case, they have an advantage - they know in advance what should be written, and therefore at some points they can, for example, guess undeciphered words from the context, or even intuitively understand the meaning of what is written without deciphering it (for example, if the balneological section is anatomy, then the reader can take a look look at the illustration, remember what kind of organ it depicts, and from there remember what he knows about this organ. In this case, he probably won't need to decrypt anything anymore).
What should I do with VMS now?
It's worth thinking not about how to create the most warlike cipher possible, but about how we can achieve this result in more mundane and accessible ways. What we can learn from these attempts can be applied directly to the text of the manuscript to find any coincidences or something else...
In any case, it seems to me to be a satisfying food for thought...
What do you think?
I couldn't create an accurate algorithm that would immediately give me the desired result, no matter how much I wanted to (if anything, I made a cipher based on Roman numerals).
In the course of these attempts, I wondered how accurate the Voynichese itself was. How perfect and accurate is this algorithm from the point of view of cryptology? Is it an algorithm at all?
These questions call into question the usually unconditional "presumption of perfection" (my name for this cliche
), which is implied, in particular, by referring to the "scribe's mistake". For some reason, errors on the part of the author are often omitted. One of the difficulties for analyzing Voynichese may be that it is not suitable for analysis as a cipher due to the lack of a clear encryption algorithm. By a clear algorithm, I mean a strictly defined and mathematically clear technique that gives and gives the same result (APPLE - GVVRK, the shift is 6; if I do the same with the word GVVRK, I get APPLE back). You can try to complicate this algorithm by adding non-mathematical rules. In the example with the Caesar cipher, I may want the first consonant to be I, the middle consonant is shifted by 2 again, and the final consonant is not encrypted. So I'll get GIXXRE from GVVRK. It became more difficult to determine the encryption algorithm and the specific substitution method that I used, the letters G and R, unaffected by my crazy rules, will not give me anything (I can shift them back to 6, there will be AIXXLE. Of course, although it's easy to guess the word APPLE, we may be confused by the two XX's in the middle and by the I. Or maybe it's not APPLE, but ACCEPT, but E is put at the end, C = X, and P and T are put in other places?). Briefly, we have the opportunity to blur the algorithm, making it difficult for a stranger to decipher it.
And now we ask ourselves the question - why should the Voynichese be a clear cipher? Why do we believe that the author was so brilliant and talented that he created a great undecipherable method unknown to science? In general, a person who is ignorant of cryptology is not expected to create the cleanest algorithm, but to use conditional substitution as a basis, having previously complicated it. There is nothing supernatural in the fact that Voynichese is unlike other ciphers of its time, because I can also mock an ordinary substitution to bring it to "perfection" without changing the algorithm itself. At this rate, I won't have any trouble, but...
By abusing these so-called "rules", I can't complicate the cipher, but distort it, making decryption difficult even for a person who knows the cipher, especially if these rules are unclear (for example, not "after every first consonant I", but "after some first consonants I"). In theory, it is possible to complicate the cipher so much that decryption will be a great challenge for the expert (that is, I will ruin it), which should not be.
And there's no guarantee that Voynichese is not a corrupted cipher. There's no guarantee that even with an algorithm, we will immediately decipher the entire manuscript without difficulty. It is possible that it is impossible to decipher Voynichese a priori (more precisely, it is possible, but the decoding will be incomplete). Perhaps that it's impossible to decrypt Voynichese a priori (or rather, it is possible, but the decryption will turn out to be incomplete) due to the fact that the author knew very little about the logic of ciphers and, without realizing it himself, made his possibly rather simple cipher very difficult to decrypt.
In general, questioning the presumption of perfection applies not only to cipher theory. Some linguistic hypotheses also depend on it, for example, Chinese theory, but to a lesser extent (most likely, the author was not a professional linguist, and his transcription of Chinese could be completely unreadable. Historical example: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for Armenian and, maybe, Hebrew, which requires knowledge of the language itself to read).
What are some historical examples of a "corrupted cipher"?
Codex Copiale (but here, rather, an example of a complicated substitution with the addition of zeros) and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (still not deciphered, but it is believed that this is a complicated Polybius square).
How did the owners read this manuscript?
By owners, I mean a team of people who understood what VMS was about and may have participated in its creation. In this case, they have an advantage - they know in advance what should be written, and therefore at some points they can, for example, guess undeciphered words from the context, or even intuitively understand the meaning of what is written without deciphering it (for example, if the balneological section is anatomy, then the reader can take a look look at the illustration, remember what kind of organ it depicts, and from there remember what he knows about this organ. In this case, he probably won't need to decrypt anything anymore).
What should I do with VMS now?
It's worth thinking not about how to create the most warlike cipher possible, but about how we can achieve this result in more mundane and accessible ways. What we can learn from these attempts can be applied directly to the text of the manuscript to find any coincidences or something else...
In any case, it seems to me to be a satisfying food for thought...
What do you think?
This can cause many problems, but there's no other way.
