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+--- Thread: A little Voynich puzzle I created (/thread-643.html)
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A little Voynich puzzle I created - Psillycyber - 18-07-2016
Hi all!
This is my first post here, although I have followed online Voynich research for some time.
I come to you all not with a theory...but with yet another puzzle (as if the original VMS wasn't enough of one!)
Recently at my blog I put upYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that I made using the Voynich script. As you will see, with this encipherment, I was able to recreate some interesting features of the VMS, especially its repetitiveness, while also conveying my information using a relatively simple procedure for unambiguously constructing and deconstructing the message.
Now, I'm not claiming that I just happened to stumble upon the method that was actually used in the VMS. The actual method used in the VMS, whatever it is, is most likely quite different. But I thought some posters on here might have fun trying to crack a code for a change where they have some assurance that there actually is light (a meaningful message) at the end of the tunnel.
So, check it out! If nobody figures out the correct decipherment in a year, I will post the solution and the procedure on July 18, 2017. Have fun!
RE: A little Voynich puzzle I created - voynichbombe - 31-10-2017
did anyone ever crack your puzzle?
RE: A little Voynich puzzle I created - Psillycyber - 01-11-2017
I'll give you two very big hints: it's based on Brian Cham's "curve/line system" idea, and on Morse Code.
It would be an interesting exercise to solve this cipher especially because the solution will be so unambiguous when you get it right, highlighting the difference between real decipherments / translations and what often passes in the field of "Voynich research" for a "solution" - something often involving anagramming or nonsensical half-Latin sentences. With my message, by contrast, the correct system will yield only one, unambiguous meaning that will be immediately obvious as a correct solution.
RE: A little Voynich puzzle I created - voynichbombe - 02-11-2017
In my harm opinion this post of yours deserves so much more of attention than it received. To be honest, I found your post giving away the solution first (DON'T read that one, if you want to have a go) but am way out of time to excercise it through. For anyone interested, the idea is VERY compelling.
What would be neat is to get a ratio of cleartext / ciphertext. Is it 1:3? Too tired to wrap my mind around it..
RE: A little Voynich puzzle I created - Psillycyber - 03-11-2017
What do you mean cleartext:ciphertext? Are you talking about nulls? Yeah, probably about a third or a fourth of the glyphs in my message are nulls.
RE: A little Voynich puzzle I created - voynichbombe - 03-11-2017
Ok, the nulls would have to be figured out, but what I meant was something along the lines of: baconian needs 15 cipher characters to encode 3 cleartext characters. But, yes it was late yesterday (as it is again for me, tonight), and now I see there is no such thing in your method? Pls correct me, if otherwise.
so.. basically an obfuscated (steganographic) way to write other code. no?
RE: A little Voynich puzzle I created - voynichbombe - 03-11-2017
(03-11-2017, 12:57 AM)voynichbombe Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ok, the nulls would have to be figured out, but what I meant was something along the lines of: baconian needs 15 cipher characters to encode 3 cleartext characters. But, yes it was late yesterday (as it is again for me, tonight), and now I see there is no such thing in your method? Pls correct me, if otherwise.
so.. basically an obfuscated (steganographic) way to write other code. no?
slow thinker here (sorry), the ratio then belongs to the underlying code.
RE: A little Voynich puzzle I created - -JKP- - 03-11-2017
(03-11-2017, 12:40 AM)Psillycyber Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What do you mean cleartext:ciphertext? Are you talking about nulls? Yeah, probably about a third or a fourth of the glyphs in my message are nulls.
I'm not sure exactly what voynichbombe was asking, but cleartext:ciphertext doesn't refer to nulls.
Cleartext << This is cleartext—text that you can readily read.
vo[jryrcy << This is ciphertext—in this case, a 1-to-1substitution code without nulls.
I think where the confusion lies is that the nulls are a subset of the ciphertext, but it might be better to refer to the ciphered cleartext as meaningful text and the ciphered nulls as nulls to prevent confusion. Cryptographers have quite a bit of fairly specific jargon, but for the purposes of a general thread, we probably don't need to go into those.
RE: A little Voynich puzzle I created - voynichbombe - 03-11-2017
As @Psillycyber writes above about his riddle, the curve/line system is used to write (obfuscate) morse code. Technical language gets fuzzy here, we'd rather say encoding instead of cipher.
What I meant is: if you have a cipher/code character representing either a dot or a dash (or supplemental interpunctuation), your encoded text will consist of many more characters than the decoded/clear text will. Like in:
...---... you will have 9 coded characters representing 3 cleartext ones, SOS. This is the ratio I was mentioning, and it does not apply to simple substitution ciphers.
Baconian needs 15 characters to encode 3 cleartext characters, like in:
ThE VoyNIch BoMbE
Here the spaces are nulls. Let me know if you figure that one out
P.s.: of course the curve/line system could also be used to obfuscate baconian, along with some pitfalls like nulls, encoded bi- & trigraphs etc. But surely this has been tried before and did not yield any results.
RE: A little Voynich puzzle I created - voynichbombe - 03-11-2017
BUT, the real spectacular thing here is, that @Psillycyber has been able to combine this with @Thorsten Timm's autocopy method!