nablator > 11-01-2022, 10:37 AM
(11-01-2022, 12:48 AM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Neat! So if I'm understanding this correctly, if we were to think of this as a game like checkers, you'd read any Latin letters on the squares the gamepiece jumped over each time to get to its new position?
Quote:I could see a nice competitive game arising out of this, where players would draw cards with words from a deck and compete to see who could encipher their word in the fewest moves. If you design it, maybe we can set up an online tournament.
Quote:This kind of cipher is great fun to try to design in general, and there seem to be a vast number of possibilities, all of which have the added advantage of seeming rather hard to crack -- not because they're particularly sophisticated compared to better-known cipher strategies, but only because they use an unexpected logic.
Quote:But whenever I pick up a history or survey of cipher techniques, it never seems to mention anything like this. Does anyone have an explanation as to why? I assume it must be for some reason other than that the Illuminati use it and have therefore suppressed all references to it. (One explanation could of course be that I'm just not reading the right stuff.)
pfeaster > 11-01-2022, 05:24 PM
(11-01-2022, 10:37 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm not sure cards would make the game more interesting.
(11-01-2022, 10:37 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:But whenever I pick up a history or survey of cipher techniques, it never seems to mention anything like this. Does anyone have an explanation as to why? ...Nothing is known apparently. However they did play board games so the possibility existed that someone, just once, designed a cipher with rules similar to a board game, it isn't a big conceptual leap.
Quote:These methods may look clumsy and slow to those of us who have become accustomed to Arabic figures and are proficient in using them for calculation, but when we consider that counter-casting was the normal method for dealing with accounts and calculations of all kinds for several hundred years it is evident that it must have been regarded as reliable and efficient.
A little practice with counters on a simple board will show that this is indeed true; and anyone who will take the trouble to work a few simple calculations may be surprised at the ease with which they can be carried out once he has become familiar with the feel of the counters....
Actual practice with counters is necessary, too, for a full appreciation of the size, shape and layout of a counting-board and of the reasons for the kind of moves that are made, including a number of short cuts that one soon begins to use. It is only by practice with counters that one realises why one should always push them from place to place and not attempt to pick them up; and one soon finds by experience what an advantage it is to have a low rim round the board.
When explaining the moves required for even a simple calculation detailed verbal or written descriptions tend, inevitably, to make the procedure seem longer and more complicated than it is in practice, and this is another reason why one should not rely upon merely reading about the abacus method, but should try it out for oneself.
nablator > 11-01-2022, 06:15 PM
(11-01-2022, 05:24 PM)pfeaster Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So I'm unsure how to reconcile our sense that this approach shouldn't have taken a "big conceptual leap" in the early 1400s with the observation that it seems to have had so little impact on cryptological practices in general, even up to our own time. Is there some factor that militates against the development of this kind of cipher process?