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+--- Thread: How perfect is Voynichese? (/thread-5888.html)
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - oshfdk - 09-07-2026
(09-07-2026, 08:02 AM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, but not always. It depends on what substitution we apply. In the case of VMS, for example, knowing the language won't help us much.
Why so?
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - ololololo - 09-07-2026
(09-07-2026, 08:47 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, I can assume that it's written in Latin, because that's the most obvious option for a medieval book. I won't get anything from this assumption, as I don't know how it's encrypted.(09-07-2026, 08:02 AM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, but not always. It depends on what substitution we apply. In the case of VMS, for example, knowing the language won't help us much.
Why so?
At the moment, the assumption about the original language of the manuscript is unprovable and does not provide us with much information.
It would be possible to compare some words and try to identify the substitution, but you have already read my thread and seen my attempts to do so. Of course, there is some similarity between the words, but it is impossible to extract anything from it.
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - Mauro - 09-07-2026
(08-07-2026, 09:12 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is worth noting that if you combine anagrams with substitution, you will get a fairly secure cipher, no worse than a one-time pad...
Uh, no, not even close. A one-time pad is theorethically perfect, it's way harder to decrypt even than, say, RSA encryption. Anagrams are just moderately difficult and simple substitution won't change the frequency distribution of characters of the original language so it does not add much to anagrams.
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - ololololo - 09-07-2026
(09-07-2026, 04:26 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It will be possible to solve rather complicated anagrams, but is it possible for a person who does not have any data about the cipher itself to do this?(08-07-2026, 09:12 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is worth noting that if you combine anagrams with substitution, you will get a fairly secure cipher, no worse than a one-time pad...
Uh, no, not even close. A one-time pad is theorethically perfect, it's way harder to decrypt even than, say, RSA encryption. Anagrams are just moderately difficult and simple substitution won't change the frequency distribution of characters of the original language so it does not add much to anagrams.
If the VMS cipher is exactly what I'm talking about in this thread, then even after getting the encryption algorithm (substitution with anagrams), then we also have to work manually with sorting out the internal rules of this cipher. And we know very little about them...
And don't think that I consider Voynichese to be just anagrams. For reference, there is a separate thread about the numeric cipher, where I outlined some assumptions.
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - JoJo_Jost - 09-07-2026
(09-07-2026, 09:01 AM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It would be possible to compare some words and try to identify the substitution, but you have already read my thread and seen my attempts to do so. Of course, there is some similarity between the words, but it is impossible to extract anything from it.
Oh, sure—the Latin word “dolor” (“pain”) appears three times in the text as a plain text...
f84v.38 qokchey qokeedy okedy dolor ol chedy oteol olol
f85r1.11 pdar ol shdair qopcheedy dal chdal chor shefshoro raiin dolor aiin opakam
f114r.11 dalchy kolky qoedaiin dolor shedy qokchdy ofchedy tolpchy doiiin chocfhdy opailo
Okay, nobody knows if that's really the Latin word “dolor” or just a VMS word
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - ololololo - 09-07-2026
(09-07-2026, 05:54 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.EVA can be misleading. We must not forget that Latin and Voynichese letters are completely different things (although similar), and it is pointless to compare them.(09-07-2026, 09:01 AM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It would be possible to compare some words and try to identify the substitution, but you have already read my thread and seen my attempts to do so. Of course, there is some similarity between the words, but it is impossible to extract anything from it.
Oh, sure—the Latin word “dolor” (“pain”) appears three times in the text as a plain text...
f84v.38 qokchey qokeedy okedy dolor ol chedy oteol olol
f85r1.11 pdar ol shdair qopcheedy dal chdal chor shefshoro raiin dolor aiin opakam
f114r.11 dalchy kolky qoedaiin dolor shedy qokchdy ofchedy tolpchy doiiin chocfhdy opailo
Okay, nobody knows if that's really the Latin word “dolor” or just a VMS word
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - oshfdk - 09-07-2026
(09-07-2026, 07:13 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.EVA can be misleading. We must not forget that Latin and Voynichese letters are completely different things (although similar), and it is pointless to compare them.
It's rarely useful, but it's not necessarily pointless. Suppose the manuscript was created in Europe and given a lot of characters do look like numbers or Latin characters or abbreviations, it's very natural to assume that the original authors had some naming convention based on this similarity. l doesn't look like L to me, but dolor could read something like do-quattuor-or to the original scribe(s), and who knows maybe there are some Easter eggs along these lines in the MS.
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - Jorge_Stolfi - 09-07-2026
(09-07-2026, 04:26 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Uh, no, not even close. A one-time pad is theorethically perfect, it's way harder to decrypt even than, say, RSA encryption.
For a letter-size document, perhaps. A book-size text in codebook cipher can be cracked by guessing the most common words and using external clues (topic, illustrations, recurring formulas, partially leaked plaintext...)
The Rohonc codex seems to be an example of a "codebook" cipher (and even in an orignal language) that was cracked this way.
All the best, --stolfi
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - ololololo - 09-07-2026
(09-07-2026, 07:32 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For a letter-size document, perhaps. A book-size text in codebook cipher can be cracked by guessing the most common words and using external clues (topic, illustrations, recurring formulas, partially leaked plaintext...)This is possible, but if the text has been distorted in an unknown way (at least the words may have been separated, but we may be missing something)... unlikely
RE: How perfect is Voynichese? - Mauro - 09-07-2026
(09-07-2026, 07:32 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(09-07-2026, 04:26 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Uh, no, not even close. A one-time pad is theorethically perfect, it's way harder to decrypt even than, say, RSA encryption.
For a letter-size document, perhaps. A book-size text in codebook cipher can be cracked by guessing the most common words and using external clues (topic, illustrations, recurring formulas, partially leaked plaintext...)
The Rohonc codex seems to be an example of a "codebook" cipher (and even in an orignal language) that was cracked this way.
All the best, --stolfi
A You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is not a codebook cipher. The resulting encrypted text is a random string and gives zero informations to an attacker.
Quote:The resulting ciphertext is impossible to decrypt or break if the following four conditions are met:
The key must be at least as long as the plaintext.
The key must be truly random.
The key must never be reused in whole or in part.
The key must be kept completely secret by the communicating parties.
These requirements make the OTP the only known encryption system that is mathematically proven to be unbreakable under the principles of information theory.