(04-02-2018, 09:27 PM)Koen Gh. wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Just thinking about it philosophically (i.e. without much knowledge of the statistics involved) I'd say that it's impossible to prove. The reason is that in this particular case the statements "it has no meaning" and "the meaning is unknown to us" have the same effect.
Let me think of an analogy. For example, you present me with a string of numbers, 22 15 25 14 9 3 8 0 14 9 14 10 1.
I could say "it's a random string of numbers". But I don't know whether this is true. Until I find a way to read the numbers in a way which makes sense, I have no way of proving whether the numbers are randomly chosen or not. I could only disprove it by pointing out what you encoded and how you did it.
That's right, without knowing the underlying system you can only make descriptive statements. All methods of decryption are based on the assumption that they are applicable to the problem or, more specifically, are transferable. The substitution of numbers and letters is obviously the right method in your example. Unfortunately, simple extensions can make this task very difficult or unsolvable. Then the fact that the basic assumption is correct can no longer be proved.
Would someone be right who claims that your method is wrong from the beginning ?
The example (solvable in one minute): 22 15 25 14 9 3 8 14 9 14 10 1
Extension by simple addition / multiplication (Ancient Egyptian multiplication) plus flagging the runs:
240 330 4 224 350 4 24 27 3 112 112 3 112 126 3 8 10 3
If you know the system, then the task can be solved in a few minutes (pen and paper). If you do not know the system, well .....