[Blog Post] Peter Bakker on the VMS

[Stephen Carlson]

Is there a test that can distinguish meaningless and undecipherable? And if there isn't, what does that mean for us?

No, such a test doesn't exists. It is possible to use a meaningful text as cover text for secret message and it is also possible to use a text which itself is meaningless for the same purpose. There are only tests for estimating the amount of information a given unreadable text can carry.

Right. I'm of the view that if we are unable to distinguish between a meaningless and an undecipherable text, then the meaningfulness of the text is an unnecessary auxiliary hypothesis that ought to be discarded. Even though texts are usually intended to communicate information, an undecipherable text cannot do so. It is in a real sense, a fake text.