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A Cipher Thought Experiment
- A Cipher Thought Experiment
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RE: A Cipher Thought Experiment
Koen G > 21-03-2025, 09:21 PM
(21-03-2025, 07:03 PM)trajan117 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi Koen, I'm not going to answer your question right now. Perhaps tomorrow or the next day. I'm not trying to be obtuse or anything doing that, I just don't want to give hints right away. I just want to say I appreciate your videos and if it weren't for them, I probably never would have found this forum.
Thanks, that's nice to hear! I do mention the forum a lot - my Voynich knowledge would be minimal and my research impossible if it weren't for the people here. -
RE: A Cipher Thought Experiment
nablator > 21-03-2025, 10:52 PM
My first idea is that there could be a verbosity limited to 'O', conspicuously frequent in the ciphertext.
These replacements would produce the other half of the alphabet:
GO -> g
KO -> k
...
TO -> t -
RE: A Cipher Thought Experiment
oshfdk > 21-03-2025, 11:08 PM
(21-03-2025, 01:49 PM)trajan117 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thanks for the input. Yeah, I might include some "clues" later. I would just like to see a pet theory of mine falsified. I would consider it falsified if someone is able to crack it without clues. Simply put, if someone can crack it, I know my idea can't be right.
Whatever the idea/theory is, if no-one actually tries to crack this code, then the fact that no-one cracked it will not prove or refute anything. It's quite easy to invent a cipher that would take days or even weeks of dedicated effort to break. I'm not sure a lot of people would seriously try breaking it just for fun.
When it comes to VMS, it seems extraordinary that someone in the XV century only using the methods and knowledge available then would create a cipher (assuming it is a cipher) that would withstand a lot of effort from many people for more than a hundred years. This is what makes the Voynich MS so attractive, at least for me. -
RE: A Cipher Thought Experiment
oshfdk > 22-03-2025, 12:09 AM
(21-03-2025, 06:02 PM)trajan117 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.With that said, here is some more text, accompanied by a pertinent image:
AI to the rescue
I started with Claude and guided it a bit, and it did break through, but couldn't figure out the details, so I had ChatGPT have a go, the end result is:
======
The classical orders of columns are so Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian.
The Doric order, the masculine order, is the most simple.
The columns are thick and stout, with simple decoration.
Culturally, it is associated with mainland Greece and Magna Graecia, especially during the Archaic and Classical periods.
The Ionic order, the feminine order, is more ornate.
The columns are slender and delicate, with characteristic scrolls called volutes decorating the capitals.
Culturally, it is associated with Ionia, probably due to its close ties with Anatolia.
Ephesus used a similar form of column.
The Corinthian order is the most ornate.
The columns tend to be slender like an Ionic column; however, it features a lavishly carved capital decorated with acanthus leaves.
Culturally, it is associated with the Hellenistic and Roman periods, being the most recently invented order.
The number of examples prior to the Hellenistic period is extremely limited.
The image above is the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena in Athens.
It is built of Pentelic marble and iron and wooden supports.
It is a hybrid temple, using both the Doric order and the Ionic order.
The outer columns are Doric, arranged in the peripteral style.
Unlike a traditional peripteral temple, the front features eight columns instead of six.
The metopes depict a temporal mythological conflict on each face, representing the victories of order over chaos.
The inner columns are in the Ionic order.
The frieze depicts the Panathenaic procession, a notable break from the typical mythological subjects carved into most temples.
The hybrid nature of the temple reflects Athens’ connection with both mainland Greece and Ionia.
======
The code itself is a multi character substitution. In most cases when you see "/X" this is just letter X, if you want to decipher it manually, you can start from this. I'm not publishing the whole mappings, in case someone wants this as a replacement for bedtime sudoku. -
RE: A Cipher Thought Experiment
oshfdk > 22-03-2025, 12:30 AM
I would say without AI and with the right estimation of the plaintext language, this would be solvable in a couple of days. -
RE: A Cipher Thought Experiment
nablator > 22-03-2025, 04:50 PM
(22-03-2025, 12:09 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The code itself is a multi character substitution. In most cases when you see "/X" this is just letter X, if you want to decipher it manually, you can start from this.
If I understand what you wrote (probably not!) "/" is an escape character among others. Any possible "X" [KLOPRST] when it is not following "/" could also be an escape character, acting as an alphabet mapping selector for the next letter. -
RE: A Cipher Thought Experiment
oshfdk > 22-03-2025, 04:52 PM
(21-03-2025, 02:37 AM)trajan117 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.GTMOLRR/O MTNO/S NO/S LO TMO/ST OMP 4TO 4POLO/SNOLPNOLRNO/TGS OMP 4TNO/S KOLTMO NO KLONR LOR/RMOLOTGS SMOO GT/OGK MTNO/S KRMOLO/TMO/S SOMRO | NPMO/RGS LR/OGR GK/ORLT/S NO LOMR ONRLRGS LT/ONOGR MTNO/S MP/OR MPGONR 4O GT/OPMO GS/OGO TRMOLO/T MTNO/S LO/S MPGONR+ | 4OMP GS/OGO 4TLONPMO LOR/RMOLOTGS LPMOONR LOPRMO TO KRLO/KK MTNO/S KOLTMO MTONR NO LOMR LO MP/OOLR KOMR/PLO/RMOLT TO MTO | KLRMONPMO/R SKRNOLPMO GKT/O GK/ROTMO MTO NP/OGSNRO/TMS MRLONRGO/SKRNO/PT MTLO/T GK/OGOLRTNR/T SGO/RPRNO/SMO 4RO | MTO/RMO LO/RMO SMRLO/RT PMO/OPLRMO GTMO/RMO
I will come back with the solution in a few days if no one solves it. I won't indicate if someone is on the right track. But if someone is able to crack it, I'll respond. I hope someone solves it!
BTW, the original message goes (with a few possible corrections, I'm not sure if those are typos or my misinterpretation of the details of the cipher):
======
Hello, this is a test of the feasibility of this code.
I can already see how this creates some very long words.
I am only doing this for fun.
I hope you treat this as fun!
If you have already been able to crack this code, then I am a fool compared to the
clever scribe who wrote the Voynich manuscript.
That wouldn’t surprise me —
there are smart people here.
======
Thank you for this exercise, I learned a few valuable lessons when it comes to using AI for solving various ciphers.
Also, in general this is important in the context of the Voynich Manuscript, because whatever the cipher there is (if it is a cipher), it's very likely that in the course of solving it, after unravelling LAAFU elements and combinatorial issues, one will end up essentially with a multi character substitution cipher as the last step. It's good to know those are not particularly hard to solve given long enough text.
As a side note, I didn't use the image you attached for guiding the AI, but this was a nice confirmation when the Parthenon popped up in the decoded text. -
RE: A Cipher Thought Experiment
oshfdk > 22-03-2025, 04:56 PM
(22-03-2025, 04:50 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(22-03-2025, 12:09 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The code itself is a multi character substitution. In most cases when you see "/X" this is just letter X, if you want to decipher it manually, you can start from this.
If I understand what you wrote (probably not!) "/" is an escape character among others. Any possible "X" [KLOPRST] when it is not following "/" could also be an escape character, acting as an alphabet mapping selector for the next letter.
It's not an escape character, the whole cipher is multi-to-multi mapping, a few characters (usually 1 or 2) of the cipher correspond to 1 or 2 characters of the plaintext. With "/" the mapping is very simple, you replace any occurrence of "/X" with "x", except "/K" makes a "c".
So, "/S" converts to "s" and "/T" to "t", etc.
For example:
Code:GTMOLRR/O MTNO/S NO/S LO TMO/ST
h e l lo thi s i s a te s t
I'm not sure I understand all the details, since some of the combinations behave weirdly sometimes, could be some extra mechanic or could be typos, this is not really important as long as it's possible to reconstruct the message. -
RE: A Cipher Thought Experiment
RobGea > 22-03-2025, 06:10 PM
Nice work -
RE: A Cipher Thought Experiment
asteckley > 22-03-2025, 11:12 PM
trajan117, I am just curious why you chose to use the particular character set of G, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, /, +, and 4?
In creating a test cipher like this -- where the symbols are arbitrary -- it would be more natural to use the characters A through M, or something like that.