08-04-2020, 11:21 PM
(08-04-2020, 09:43 PM)Mark Knowles wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
And they are both written in an unknown script; however one we find easy to read and the other very hard. ...
The Fontana cipher is easy to read, so from a cryptanalysis viewpoint, it is not unknown. As far as shapes go, however, almost every cipher I encounter in various manuscripts is different.
If you copy someone else's cipher shapes, then that other person can read your cipher, so there is some motivation to invent your own glyphs, if secrecy is desired.
Most medieval ciphers were the same basic idea, simple substitution codes, but the specific glyph-shapes used to represent the letters vary quite a bit.
In terms of originality, the Fontana cipher was not unusual. The choice of shapes was perhaps a bit more consistent than others (less variable from letter to letter), but there was certainly a dose of creativity in many medieval cipher shapes. It's possible a majority of them were unique.