Why is the Voynich Manuscript Still Undeciphered ?

[Mark Knowles]

The reason for me is that this text doesnt 'work'  like known ciphers. As a result, we don't even know if there is no meaning at all behind the text, a heavily diluted meaning or more.

I think this is basically it: we still don't even know what kind of thing we're looking at. If the text statistically behaved like a known cipher, we could attack it more vigorously.

Well, there is the question of what we are going to do to address these issues? There are different things that can be done. One thing that I, personally, am working on assiduously is expanding our knowledge of 'known' ciphers. 'Known' ciphers means exactly that 'known', so it is by exploring archives and other sources that we come to know more about ciphers of that time. I certainly have learnt more and discovered evidence that ciphers from the time which the Voynich is carbon dated to were more sophisticated than previously believed. I also am working on discovering more ciphers in archives to expand our knowledge of cryptography from that time. Hunting for material from archives is hard, but progress can be made. I was recently in touch with Dr. George Lasry about his group's surprising discoveries of the Mary Queen of Scots enciphered letters. There are a number of possible lines of enquiry that could lead to more ciphers from the Voynich era. Clearly there are currently significant gaps in the historical record for ciphers of that time, hopefully some of these gaps can be filled.