27-08-2022, 05:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 27-08-2022, 06:06 PM by Mark Knowles.)
Nick: David Kahn clearly did an amazing job, however in tackling such a broad sweep of history the energy he could devote to researching such a narrow piece of history as late 14th century to early 15th century cryptography was obviously limited. As such his account of this specific narrow period of history is very weak; I don't blame him for that as I couldn't produce an Opus like "The Codebreakers". However there is clearly plenty of room for people to specialise in and zero in on specific periods of history.
Prof. Beata Megyesi of Upsala University in Sweden told me that 17th century Papal ciphers are actually simpler and less sophicated than 16th century Papal ciphers. I haven't verified this statement myself, but given my experience the idea of a smooth linear progression in the evolution or usage of cryptography does seem overly simplistic. I agree with you, I think reality is often not that neat, but it is more interesting and complex. So I wholeheartedly agree with you on your point about this flawed view of technological history. I would say that I do think that in certain situations there are more incentives to improve the cryptographic capabilities of one's state/country than in some other circumstances. I am inclined to the perspective that in wartime cryptography tends, everything else being equal, to be more important to a state/country than in peacetime and therefore states/countries are inclined to devote more resources to improve their cryptographic techniques in wartime. Whilst, I am no expert on the subject, the role of cryptography during the second World War seems like an example of this.
To use a phrase that I first notice you using: "Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence". I think there has been a tendency amongst researchers to assume that if one hasn't seen a cipher key or enciphered letter then it doesn't exist. I am sure that I haven't seen everything that survives of early 15th century ciphers. In fact, sadly, I am sure that I will never see everything that survives of early 15th century ciphers. There may be a lot that survives out there that I haven't seen, there may be only a little more. I have learnt that often archivists don't know very well what they have in their archives; this is not intended as a criticism as I daresay I would be exactly the same in their position. As one academic told me, archivists aren't trained in recognising ciphers. And these documents can end up anywhere from an enciphered Sforza letter in a Moscow archive to a collection of enciphered Milanese letters in a Paris archive to enciphered letters in small minor Italian archives; these documents can find their way anywhere. It wouldn't completely shock me if it turned out there were early 15th century enciphered letters somewhere in an Oxford University archive/library in my hometown. I am though very conscious of how much history has been lost forever. I would guess that less than 1% of the original early 15th century cipher documents have survived, which I find a bit dispiriting. I am just scrambling around trying to find the documents that escaped the fires and the rubbish bin. I can't search manually throughout European archives for early 15th century ciphers; I don't have the resources or time to do that. I have to rely on the clues that I can find, which means I will miss the documents for which there are no clues.
Independently of the Voynich this project is of value. Even if my hypothesis about the Voynich manuscript is completely wrong I have made through hardwork a significant achievement. Of course if my thinking about the Voynich is correct that makes it still more significant.
Prof. Beata Megyesi of Upsala University in Sweden told me that 17th century Papal ciphers are actually simpler and less sophicated than 16th century Papal ciphers. I haven't verified this statement myself, but given my experience the idea of a smooth linear progression in the evolution or usage of cryptography does seem overly simplistic. I agree with you, I think reality is often not that neat, but it is more interesting and complex. So I wholeheartedly agree with you on your point about this flawed view of technological history. I would say that I do think that in certain situations there are more incentives to improve the cryptographic capabilities of one's state/country than in some other circumstances. I am inclined to the perspective that in wartime cryptography tends, everything else being equal, to be more important to a state/country than in peacetime and therefore states/countries are inclined to devote more resources to improve their cryptographic techniques in wartime. Whilst, I am no expert on the subject, the role of cryptography during the second World War seems like an example of this.
To use a phrase that I first notice you using: "Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence". I think there has been a tendency amongst researchers to assume that if one hasn't seen a cipher key or enciphered letter then it doesn't exist. I am sure that I haven't seen everything that survives of early 15th century ciphers. In fact, sadly, I am sure that I will never see everything that survives of early 15th century ciphers. There may be a lot that survives out there that I haven't seen, there may be only a little more. I have learnt that often archivists don't know very well what they have in their archives; this is not intended as a criticism as I daresay I would be exactly the same in their position. As one academic told me, archivists aren't trained in recognising ciphers. And these documents can end up anywhere from an enciphered Sforza letter in a Moscow archive to a collection of enciphered Milanese letters in a Paris archive to enciphered letters in small minor Italian archives; these documents can find their way anywhere. It wouldn't completely shock me if it turned out there were early 15th century enciphered letters somewhere in an Oxford University archive/library in my hometown. I am though very conscious of how much history has been lost forever. I would guess that less than 1% of the original early 15th century cipher documents have survived, which I find a bit dispiriting. I am just scrambling around trying to find the documents that escaped the fires and the rubbish bin. I can't search manually throughout European archives for early 15th century ciphers; I don't have the resources or time to do that. I have to rely on the clues that I can find, which means I will miss the documents for which there are no clues.
Independently of the Voynich this project is of value. Even if my hypothesis about the Voynich manuscript is completely wrong I have made through hardwork a significant achievement. Of course if my thinking about the Voynich is correct that makes it still more significant.