![[0500] The Book Of Woo](/comics/2013-07-29-0500-the-book-of-woo.jpg "[0500] The Book Of Woo")
Have you ever heard of the Voynich manuscript? It’s a mysterious book, possibly created in the early 15th century, that contains weird illustrations and text written in an unknown script and language. Since its rediscovery in 1912 by Wilfrid Voynich, it has eluded the decipherment attempts of generations of cryptographers. The Voynich manuscript is a fascinating piece of history that has inspired many novels, games and films. Amateur cryptographers can find the latest news and research on the Voynich manuscript and other uncracked ciphers on Nick Pelling’s blog Cipher Mysteries. He’s also the author of the readable non-fiction book The Curse of the Voynich.
To celebrate the publication of the 500th Sandra and Woo strip, I have decided to publish “my own Voynich manuscript”. So here it is, The Book of Woo! As you can see, it resembles the Voynich manuscript in several ways. But of course we couldn’t create 240 pages, 4 had to be enough. Unlike the Voynich manuscript, The Book of Woo definitely contains sensible information that can be deciphered. I guarantee it ;-). And I will pay the person who is able to provide a decipherment that’s sufficiently close to the plain text a reward of $500. Send your decipherment attempt(s) to novil@gmx.de. I would also love to hear about your general ideas or statistical analyses that you carried out. There is no deadline. I will not publish the solution until at least strip #1000.
But be warned: It’s a huge challenge and I don’t expect to receive a valid decipherment at all. It’s primarily a work of art, not a puzzle for the general public. I believe that only experienced and dedicated code breakers have the chance to succeed. A lot of time was spent on the encryption. If you think you can simply carry out a frequency analysis on the letters and be able to reconstruct the English or German plain text this way, well, that’s just a waste of time. However, to make things a little easier, I want to give you the following hints:
- The encryption isn’t based on an algorithm only suitable for computers which executes a loop 100 times or something like that.
- The encryption isn’t based on some sort of device or mechanism that is hard to get.
- No “classical” steganographic method was used since that would just be impossibly hard to crack.
- The plain text is some sort of literature, as one can guess from Woo’s comment and the illustrations. A lot of time went into the plain text as well, it’s not just a copy of the first page of Rascal or something like that.
You can download larger versions of the four pages of the Book of Woo here:
[Update: 10 August 2013] Everybody who is seriously interested in deciphering The Book of Woo should read the comment section. There is a lot of interesting information in it.
[Update: 31 March 2015] The Book of Woo Wiki, now maintained by our reader Chris, also contains valuabable information for anyone who’s trying to break the code. In case the wiki should go offline sometime in the future, I created a complete backup of the wiki’s content on 31 March 2015.
In other news, the winners of the Sandra and Woo and Gaia fanart contest 2013 have been posted.
Thanks to everyone who participated!
- Sandra: Hey, Woo, what are you writing?
- Woo: Oh, just a little story.
- Sandra: Really? Can I have a look?
- Woo: Sure, I’ve just finished it.
- Sandra: What in Voynich’s name…?!
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@ Satsuoni:
I’m referring to a different typo 😛
@ Charles:
Where? And what breaks down? Did you figure something out? 🙂
@ Satsuoni:
Nothing that you shouldn’t already know… yet.
But like I said before: 2nd-to-last paragraph, 5th line, 2nd word after the period. It’s missing a character.
Can’t find it 🙁 In fact, I am not sure if you refer to original text, my reduction or Ryan’s transcription… or where you find paragraphs in them.
Apparently you’ve already fixed the typo in your transcript, since it’s “correct” there. Looking at the original pictures, there are 7 paragraphs (one paragraph’s in 2 sections). 6th paragraph, 5th line, 2nd word after the period.
In your transcription, it would be “i/hrn” instead of “i/hvrn”.
After reading this strip, I have seen mentionings of the VOynich manuscript at 2 other places, at the webcomic Xckd and at Dan Brown’s book “The Lost Symbol”. The words are haunting me!
Just to add my two cents… I’m not into cryptographics, but I think we should/could assume the following:
1. The original text of the story is in English, since most of the fanbase/commentors/partitipants are from the english-speaking side.
2. AckAckAck is mostly right with his general summary of the story we see on the four pages.
3. I don’t think it’s any ‘real’ sort of cipher… I doubt that Woo would write his story by running every word through a certain encryption method, not even a simple one as ROT13 that just swaps letters in a certain scheme. So I think we should just see it as what it is supposed to be based on the comic: the ‘raccoon language’. Thus I guess our best bet wold be to ‘guess’ what a certain word or sentence means and then check if those assumptions match at other places in the text too.
Since it was said it’s more “a work of art” than a puzzle, what I personally tried was just looking at the thing and hoping some words might have a familiar look based on structure, lines and optical merging (when you look from it from further away for example)… which didn’t work, alas. 😉
@ Yellow:
There are a couple of problems with that assumption though.
The most concerning problem is that the most common word length is 4 letters followed by 7 letters. This can only mean that one of the characters is either null or represents something like punctuation.
In english you would see a lot more 2 and 3 letter words than anything else and only a few 1 letter words. Definitely effort has been taken to remove this frequency.
The other frequency issue is there are no double letters anywhere in the manuscript. This is frankly impossible with a 26 letter substitution. It could be possible that he used a homophonic type of subsitution but the word length frequency says otherwise.
I did some tests on the word length trying to see if a letter in the reduced manuscript could be a space and all the letters failed. I keept ending up with 40+ character “words” so its not a space. The next step I took was to randomly remove letters from the manuscript. The word length got better but its not perfect plus its very hard to pick a letter which doesn’t end up with a bunch of single letter words which can’t be right.
The letter M in the manuscript when removed does seem to get the manuscript closer to the correct word length frequency. I suspect its null or a switch. The switch character also does a good job of removing enough letters to get it closer to true word length frequencies. I hope someone can figure out the true ones later on.
I keep looking back at this, checking people’s progress and pretend that I know what it all means…
@ Luke:
Don’t worry… it doesn’t make any sense to any of us!
I’m stuck trying to figure out how to “fix” these pairs of characters I get… surrounded by spaces!
i.e. CC KK SS
@ Jamie:
No, what I actually did was just looking at the text (without caring about specific word lenghts or how often a character appears), in the hope that the ‘general outline / optical image’ of specific words would remind me of similar, familiar looking ‘real’ words in the english language (seeing the text as a ‘piece of art’, where the simple optical effect/appearance counts instead of a ‘puzzle’, where you do real calculations and letter/word comparing/counting)… but as I said, I wasn’t able to spot anything reminding me of a ‘real’ word.
Next suggestion would be to guess what’s written in the ” ” on page 1, or what the ‘Raccoon Laws’ list might say on page 3…
@ Yellow:
I can’t say for the 1st or 2nd assumption, but the 3rd assumption is most certainly false. The very top layer of encryption switches between two alphabets at a certain keyword.
Another layer encrypts away any point of doing letter or word size frequency, by the way.
Meh, still no progress. No time, either. Anyway, removing a single letter probably won’t work, given the largely syllabic structure of the ciphertext. One type is always followed by another , or “m”. “z” follows the rules of space, just more restricted – only one of 6 letters before it (including “m”), and most (not all) after it. A few unimportant facts : “z” seems to be followed by a single “syllable”, unless “z” is the second letter. Then it might be followed by a 2 or more-syllable word (usually a whole word that exists somewhere else). Singular 5-symbols only appear at the beginning of words.
Given 16 symbols, direct symbol to letter is unlikely in any event, unless the language underwent severe reduction, like replacing “Th” with “Z/S”. Some syllables may contain nulls, but probably depending on syllable and possibly its position in word.
Also, Novil mentioned several layers, so there are more than one left 🙂 Come on people, share ideas that go beyond substitution. Say, permutation 🙂 Or how to make a syllabic language from English/German.
I’m not sure which I should find more fascinating… This beautiful piece of artistic & mental genius or the fact that it has such an aspired readership!
I am terrible at these sorts of puzzles myself. And have no interest in taking money for my mental exercises to boot. So I will sit this out in such that I’ll let clearer minds defog and defragment the story.
That being said, it does look like any number of tales told. In as much as it Seems to have many of the Pictorial elements of many myths I’ve studied over the years…
Page one & two: the story of Prometheus and the stealing of the knowledge of fire. Along with the Native American story of Crow who stole the fire of the sun from the sky gods so that the animals could be warm. (it was Also the tale of how her feathers came to be black.)
Page three: The picture seems to tell of how the wild animal must remain wild or they’ll die. Raccoons build their homes high up in trees. Both the branches and the hollows and many raccoons come winter may share the same tree if it’s big enough to sleep out the winter cold.
It could be a warning to their kind to be wary of being trapped or caged or they’ll die as a result.
The Last Page: Seems to be an end-of-days story about how the wily wise turkey shows the faithful a way out of the destruction of the world as they knew it.
I realise I’ve likely added nothing to the study. I am not a logician as many here and can only surmise what I see. That it’s obviously the stories of the raccoon kind and how will be for them.
It is said that animals speak when we are not there to hear it because they can not trust the Creator’s Second Children. That to this day, they know Language, only few of them wish to share it with us. So that Woo can speak is not the surprise here really. But that Woo has found a Second Child worthy of sharing Knowledge and Language with Is.
All that aside, this comic is an amazing piece of art. Well thought out and very interesting to behold. I’m looking forward to going to the beginning and reading it all so that I may understand its characters better. Thank you for all the work and time you put into making this such a place where the collective minds of such bright people can shine.
@ Satsuoni:
Right now we know we have 15 symbols and the rest are extra. If thats true then you’ll need a combination of symbols or some kind of switch to make the rest of the 11 letters appear from english.
Thats why I’ve been removing characters one by one from the manuscript and seeing if the word length frequency changes to something more normal looking. For right now I can say that R is probably one of those characters. It either reduces to one letter of a higher order or switches the alphabet.
Without R removed the word counts:
(1) letters 1 words
(2) letters 11 words
(3) letters 23 words
(4) letters 107 words
(5) letters 30 words
(6) letters 32 words
(7) letters 67 words
(8) letters 19 words
(9) letters 29 words
(10) letters 17 words
(11) letters 10 words
(12) letters 3 words
(13) letters 2 words
With R Removed:
(1) letters 1 words
(2) letters 26 words
(3) letters 40 words
(4) letters 87 words
(5) letters 53 words
(6) letters 43 words
(7) letters 37 words
(8) letters 31 words
(9) letters 13 words
(10) letters 15 words
(11) letters 2 words
(12) letters 3 words
For comparision sake lets take the declartion of indenpence as an example see what those word counts look like.
(1) letters 17 words
(2) letters 248 words
(3) letters 258 words
(4) letters 165 words
(5) letters 137 words
(6) letters 107 words
(7) letters 101 words
(8) letters 71 words
(9) letters 62 words
(10) letters 54 words
(11) letters 36 words
(12) letters 16 words
(13) letters 10 words
(14) letters 10 words
(15) letters 2 words
The Letter V does a good job of changing the word length issue as well:
(2) letters 15 words
(3) letters 51 words
(4) letters 95 words
(5) letters 37 words
(6) letters 44 words
(7) letters 41 words
(8) letters 27 words
(9) letters 15 words
(10) letters 13 words
(11) letters 10 words
(12) letters 1 words
(13) letters 1 words
I can say that if this method was used to hide characters then the letters N and = clearly would not work. They produce far too many different single letter words which isn’t possible in english.
@ Jamie: Your word length counts for removing r and v are completely wrong for Satsuoni’s transcription which I have confirmed as correct. The amount of resulting 1 letter words, for example, is much higher.
I checked Satsuoni’s transcription:
– Page 3, lower part, line 5, word 5: The artwork contains an error that is already fixed in the transcription, the correct word is: i/hvrn
– Page 4, line 5, word 7: The artwork contains a minor error: There shouldn’t be a full stop after #=s=
– Page 4, line 9, word 1: The transcription contains an error, the correct word is: rb#=zcbzh=m
Here is the complete and correct transcription with m as a single character and & for the “oPo” character:
i/hvrn svrnzrn mnsn vzmn: i/hvrn svrnzrn c/#n >/#=z#/m ivhn. h=mzr=
svrn ibrnzr= /m=zrnzt/ v & >nsvt=. cvm>/ m=m>= h=rb in#v >nmnzr=
/m=zrn />vmzr/mzrn #/m ivhnzrn #bcv vz#/m ivhn. #/m ivhnzrn c/#v
vzmn: /z=r=i= vzs= s=s=zinm. /m= svrnzrn >=m= vzmnsn “sn c=h=”
c=h=zt=m i=s= =rv i=s=zrn c=h=zc=mzs= >n ibm/z>n >nmn =r=. cvm>/
c=h= cvm>/ c=h=zs= rvcvzr= /m= svrnzrn rb#nm vz#vmz>n s/rnzvm
>=#=r=. c=h= >/m=zvm i/m=
>/m=zr= i/m= /m=zr=z#/m
ivhn n#vzrn s/rn =r=
vz/m= svrn. cvm>/
ibm/zr= /m= r=>v.
cvm>/ >nsvt=zr=
m/#= ibm/zrn >=m=
vzm=inm c=h= /m=zr/m
c=mzs= >nsvt=zr/m
c=h=zs= ibm/.
>nmnz>n c=h=
ibrnzr= /m=zrn
#=s= c=h=zs= >nmn.
s= >nmnzrn #=in
ibrn r/mzs=z>n
#=in ibrnz>n
#brv r=i/z>n
cvm>/ =rv.
—
i/hvrn svrnzrn c/#n >/#=z#/m ivhnzrn s=s= svrnz>n i/hvrn =rvz>n
inm>nmz>n & >nsvt=. sn i/hvrnzrn i=s= =r= vzi/hvrn =mcv.
m=inmzmnzr= sn i/hvrnzrn i=s=:
svrn ibrnzrn >nrnm rb#=
vzi/hvrn =rv #v>v#vm rb#=
ivhnz>n /m=z>n svrn ibrn.
c=mzmnzr= h=h= ivhnzrn
c=h=zr/m rb#=z>nzsn sbcvzrn
incvrvm vzm=inmz>n s=z>n
#=in ibrn. m=inm ivhnz>n svrn
ibrnzrnzr/m r=h=zsn sbcv.
i/hvrn =rnz>n & >nsvt=zrn hnrv
c=h= i=s= svrn ibrn. i/hvrnzrn
#bcv vzmnsnz>n /m= ivhnzr=
i/hvrnz>n inm>nm =rvz>n &
>nsvt=zrn =r=i= vzs=zinm.
c=h= >/m=zvm i/m= >/m=zr=
i/hvrnz>n inm>nmz>n &
>nsvt=zrn =m>= vz>=#=r=.
i/hvrnz>n & >nsvt=zrn #v>v#vm sbcv
vzrb#=zrn #v>v#vm rnrn vzh=h= =mcv.
—
cvm>/ in#vz>n m=m>=
h=rbzr= i/hvrnzmnzrn
sbinzr/mzs= >n #=in
ibrnz>n r=i/z>n cvm>/
=rv. =r=zrn =mcv.
c=i/ cvm>/
in#v ibm/
10000
r=zt=m i/m=zh=mzrn
#=s= c=h= inm>nmzvm
inm>nmzr/mzs= >nzs=
mvm=z>n nmi= ibrn.
t=mzrn =m>= vzh=m vz=rv. =rvzr=zrn r/m >/#= =mcv.
t=m i/m=zrn c=h=zs=zsn. snzrn c=h=zs=z>n t=m i/m=.
t=m sbcvzrn >nrnm n#v c=h=zsn.
t=m sbcvzrn >nrnm /rnm c=h=zsn. t=m rnrnzrn >nrnm
vzi/m=zr/m >nzsn i/hvrn. sn i/hvrn sbcvzrn #=s=zt/
vz>nrnm >=#=r= vzs/rnzr/m c/s/ ibrn s/mibc=. i/hvrn sbcv
=mcvzrn #=s=zt/ vz>/m=z#nm r/mzs=z>n #=in ibrnzc=m
#nhvmzvm #nhvmz>n #brv =r=z>nzt=m i/m=zmn.
—
t=m i/m= sbcvzrnzr/m s= =mcv vzi/hvrnz>n & >nsvt=. c=i/ cvm>/
ivrnz>nzs= =rvzr= h=i/ r=h= n#vzvm h=i/ s/rn n#vzrn />vm vzc/s/
bc= c=h= >=rn =r= c=h= i/hvrn >=rnz>n m=m>= rnrn. i/hvrnzrn =m>=
vzs=zinm. sn i/hvrnzrn c=h= nmi=zs=z>n #=in ibrn c=h= nmi=zs=z>n
#nhvmzvm #nhvmz>n #brv =r=. sn i/hvrnzrn #=s= i/m= sbcv. s=s=
sntvzvm s=s= svrnzrn =m>=. c=i/ cvm>/ #=s=zr= i/hvrn rnrnzrn
ivhn! cvm>/ mnz#nmzr= m=m>=z>n i/hvrnzsnzrn ibrn! cvm>/ #=s=zr=
m=m>=zrn #=s= =r= rnrn. rb#= h=mzrnzr/m bc= #nhvmz>n nr/ s/rn.
rb#=zcbzh=m rnzr/mzs= >n sbinzvm s/rn =r=! cvm>/z>n
i/hvrnz>n &
>nsvt=zrnzinm!
If you want to use Jamie’s tool, use this transcription:
ilhvrn svrnzrn mnsn vzmn ilhvrn svrnzrn cl#n >l#=z#lm ivhn h=mzr= svrn ibrnzr= lm=zrnztl v & >nsvt= cvm>l m=m>= h=rb in#v >nmnzr= lm=zrn l>vmzrlmzrn #lm ivhnzrn #bcv vz#lm ivhn #lm ivhnzrn cl#v vzmn lz=r=i= vzs= s=s=zinm lm= svrnzrn >=m= vzmnsn “sn c=h=” c=h=zt=m i=s= =rv i=s=zrn c=h=zc=mzs= >n ibmlz>n >nmn =r= cvm>l c=h= cvm>l c=h=zs= rvcvzr= lm= svrnzrn rb#nm vz#vmz>n slrnzvm >=#=r= c=h= >lm=zvm ilm= >lm=zr= ilm= lm=zr=z#lm ivhn n#vzrn slrn =r= vzlm= svrn cvm>l ibmlzr= lm= r=>v cvm>l >nsvt=zr= ml#= ibmlzrn >=m= vzm=inm c=h= lm=zrlm c=mzs= >nsvt=zrlm c=h=zs= ibml >nmnz>n c=h= ibrnzr= lm=zrn #=s= c=h=zs= >nmn s= >nmnzrn #=in ibrn rlmzs=z>n #=in ibrnz>n #brv r=ilz>n cvm>l =rv ilhvrn svrnzrn cl#n >l#=z#lm ivhnzrn s=s= svrnz>n ilhvrn =rvz>n inm>nmz>n & >nsvt= sn ilhvrnzrn i=s= =r= vzilhvrn =mcv m=inmzmnzr= sn ilhvrnzrn i=s= svrn ibrnzrn >nrnm rb#= vzilhvrn =rv #v>v#vm rb#= ivhnz>n lm=z>n svrn ibrn c=mzmnzr= h=h= ivhnzrn c=h=zrlm rb#=z>nzsn sbcvzrn incvrvm vzm=inmz>n s=z>n #=in ibrn m=inm ivhnz>n svrn ibrnzrnzrlm r=h=zsn sbcv ilhvrn =rnz>n & >nsvt=zrn hnrv c=h= i=s= svrn ibrn ilhvrnzrn #bcv vzmnsnz>n lm= ivhnzr= ilhvrnz>n inm>nm =rvz>n & >nsvt=zrn =r=i= vzs=zinm c=h= >lm=zvm ilm= >lm=zr= ilhvrnz>n inm>nmz>n & >nsvt=zrn =m>= vz>=#=r= ilhvrnz>n & >nsvt=zrn #v>v#vm sbcv vzrb#=zrn #v>v#vm rnrn vzh=h= =mcv cvm>l in#vz>n m=m>= h=rbzr= ilhvrnzmnzrn sbinzrlmzs= >n #=in ibrnz>n r=ilz>n cvm>l =rv =r=zrn =mcv c=il cvm>l in#v ibml 10000 r=zt=m ilm=zh=mzrn #=s= c=h= inm>nmzvm inm>nmzrlmzs= >nzs= mvm=z>n nmi= ibrn t=mzrn =m>= vzh=m vz=rv =rvzr=zrn rlm >l#= =mcv t=m ilm=zrn c=h=zs=zsn snzrn c=h=zs=z>n t=m ilm= t=m sbcvzrn >nrnm n#v c=h=zsn t=m sbcvzrn >nrnm lrnm c=h=zsn t=m rnrnzrn >nrnm vzilm=zrlm >nzsn ilhvrn sn ilhvrn sbcvzrn #=s=ztl vz>nrnm >=#=r= vzslrnzrlm clsl ibrn slmibc= ilhvrn sbcv =mcvzrn #=s=ztl vz>lm=z#nm rlmzs=z>n #=in ibrnzc=m #nhvmzvm #nhvmz>n #brv =r=z>nzt=m ilm=zmn t=m ilm= sbcvzrnzrlm s= =mcv vzilhvrnz>n & >nsvt= c=il cvm>l ivrnz>nzs= =rvzr= h=il r=h= n#vzvm h=il slrn n#vzrn l>vm vzclsl bc= c=h= >=rn =r= c=h= ilhvrn >=rnz>n m=m>= rnrn ilhvrnzrn =m>= vzs=zinm sn ilhvrnzrn c=h= nmi=zs=z>n #=in ibrn c=h= nmi=zs=z>n #nhvmzvm #nhvmz>n #brv =r= sn ilhvrnzrn #=s= ilm= sbcv s=s= sntvzvm s=s= svrnzrn =m>= c=il cvm>l #=s=zr= ilhvrn rnrnzrn ivhn cvm>l mnz#nmzr= m=m>=z>n ilhvrnzsnzrn ibrn cvm>l #=s=zr= m=m>=zrn #=s= =r= rnrn rb#= h=mzrnzrlm bc= #nhvmz>n nrl slrn rb#=zcbzh=m rnzrlmzs= >n sbinzvm slrn =r= cvm>lz>n ilhvrnz>n & >nsvt=zrnzinm
@ Novil:
Thank you, Novil. However, you mentioned “p” as “oPo”, which seems to be missing from transcription, or is it my eyes?
Also, a new “syllable” (“cb”)!
Well, no matter. I am still baffled, and convinced that I am missing something obvious.
@ Novil:
Thanks for the insight Novil. It certainly is reassuring to have the author confirm or deny ideas hehe!
While I’m bad at cyphers, I’m ok at interpretation. If the artwork offers any actual clues to the story, maybe it’ll help.
The first page has been discussed and I can’t find anything to add.
Second page: My guess is that the three ‘powers’ are the dextrous paw, the use of tools and sharp senses. I think someone suggested the bottom one could be something with sun rays, but sun rays are usually drawn as lines comming down, sometimes from a central point sometimes… well, no clue to that word. On my keyboard I’d use \\\ or something. Sound is most commonly shown as those waves )))
The third page grabs my attention with a detail I didn’t see mentioned yet. On the top is a scorpion, which I associate with. well, bad things. Considering the context my guess is that the gifts turned out to cause a lot of harm. The trees city in the right picture looks grand, right? Right. It also looks dead, which is enhanced by the left side. The ‘coons were trapped in their cities, that they made themself, and were dieing inside. It looks like corruption too.
Fourth page. Eagle destroys the cities, don’t ask me why. Turkey man explains that they weren’t living good lifes, that it was a prison (note the chain in his hand) and bids them to go away from their civilization and be free, which they do.
Personally, I’m viewing this as a 48 letter “alphabet”, with certain letters omitted.
With the exception of z, m, and &, all the characters form a neat little format. Most letters begin a two character “set”, while the remaining 5 either end that set or appear after a space or z.
For z, I’m simply keeping it separate because it looks nicer that way, but for m I’m merging it with the following “end character” or leaving it as-is if there is no end character.
The end result has quite a few patterns itself that I still haven’t made heads or tails on, but also reveals a very strange “feature” of this layer.
In my transcription, exactly 3 letters appear next to each other: C, K, and S. These pairs only appear as the entire word or only with extensions (P_CC, SS_S, etc.). I haven’t been able to make heads or tails as to why this pattern occurs, so I’ll throw the crowd a bone in hopes they can figure something out!
FYI, I view your “z” as a separator of sorts, so in my transcription it’s “_”. There’s exactly two types of prefixes with this, with one of the types only appearing once. Not sure if it’s a typo?
The suffixes, on the other hand, are much more varied. With the suffixes, there are two categories: the ones that are followed by “*” (your “m”), and the ones that are either the end of the word or followed by another suffix. Oddly enough, the two sets have mutually exclusive characters! For instance, “_M*”, but NEVER “_M”. No idea why.
Take it away, crowd!
@ Bartimaeus:
Holy crap, you’re amazing.
Here is Novil’s transcription with characters substituted to have more ‘qokedy’ 😉
Definitely a hint of Voynichese, maybe some japanese too…
numase faseise refe aire: numase faseise cube dubyibur name. myrisy fase noseisy uryiseilu a defaly. cardu ryrdy myso neba dereisy uryise udarisurise bur nameise boca aibur name. bur nameise cuba aire: uiysyny aify fyfyiner. ury faseise dyry airefe “fe cymy” cymyilyr nyfy ysa nyfyise cymyicyrify de noruide dere ysy. cardu cymy cardu cymyify sacaisy ury faseise sober aibaride fuseiar dybysy. cymy duryiar nury duryisy nury uryisyibur name ebaise fuse ysy aiury fase. cardu noruisy ury syda. cardu defalyisy ruby noruise dyry airyner cymy uryisur cyrify defalyisur cymyify noru.
dereide cymy noseisy uryise byfy cymyify dere. fy dereise byne nose surifyide byne noseide bosa synuide cardu ysa.
numase faseise cube dubyibur nameise fyfy faseide numase ysaide nerderide defaly. fe numaseise nyfy ysy ainumase yrca. rynerireisy fe numaseise nyfy: fase noseise deser soby ainumase ysa badabar soby nameide uryide fase nose. cyrireisy mymy nameise cymyisur sobyideife focaise necasar airyneride fyide byne nose. ryner nameide fase noseiseisur symyife foca. numase yseide defalyise mesa cymy nyfy fase nose. numaseise boca airefeide ury nameisy numaseide nerder ysaide defalyise ysyny aifyiner.
cymy duryiar nury duryisy numaseide nerderide defalyise yrdy aidybysy. numaseide defalyise badabar foca aisobyise badabar sese aimymy yrca.
cardu nebaide ryrdy mysoisy numaseireise foneisurify de byne noseide synuide cardu ysa. ysyise yrca. cynu cardu neba noru 10000 syilyr nuryimyrise byfy cymy nerderiar nerderisurify deify raryide erny nose.
lyrise yrdy aimyr aiysa. ysaisyise sur duby yrca.
lyr nuryise cymyifyife. feise cymyifyide lyr nury.
lyr focaise deser eba cymyife.
lyr focaise deser user cymyife. lyr seseise deser ainuryisur deife numase. fe numase focaise byfyilu aideser dybysy aifuseisur cufu nose furnocy. numase foca yrcaise byfyilu aiduryiber surifyide byne noseicyr bemariar bemaride bosa ysyideilyr nuryire.
lyr nury focaiseisur fy yrca ainumaseide defaly. cynu cardu naseideify ysaisy mynu symy ebaiar mynu fuse ebaise udar aicufu ocy cymy dyse ysy cymy numase dyseide ryrdy sese. numaseise yrdy aifyiner. fe numaseise cymy ernyifyide byne nose cymy ernyifyide bemariar bemaride bosa ysy. fe numaseise byfy nury foca. fyfy felaiar fyfy faseise yrdy. cynu cardu byfyisy numase seseise name! cardu reiberisy ryrdyide numaseifeise nose! cardu byfyisy ryrdyise byfy ysy sese. soby myriseisur ocy bemaride esu fuse. sobyicoimyr seisurify de foneiar fuse ysy! carduide numaseide defalyiseiner!
@ Satsuoni:
ON OFF SWITCH!!!! I WIN!!!! (see previous comment)
Satsuoni wrote:
The “oPo” special char is not useful for a word length analysis (second transcription).
cg wrote:
I’m beginning to think that I have, indeed, given the world a second Voynich manuscript.
For anyone who might be wondering, here’s the transcription that I’m referring to:
BWS VS_S 1I P_1: BWS VS_S %8 ON_M* XY. C*_G
VS ^S_G EF_S_7 P & NVH. D*O F*0 CL (Q N1_G
EF_S E)*_#*_S M* XY_S 8D P_M* XY. M* XY_S %Q
P_1: E_JGZ P_K KK_(*. EF VS_S 0F P_1I “I AC”
AC_H* ZK J@ ZK_S AC_A*_K N ^3_N N1 JG. D*O
AC D*O AC_K @D_G EF VS_S L8* P_Q*_N RS_P*
0NG. AC OF_P* BF
OF_G BF EF_G_M*
XY 5Q_S RS JG
P_EF VS. D*O
^3_G EF G).
D*O NVH_G
3N ^3_S 0F
P_F(* AC EF_#*
A*_K NVH_#*
AC_K ^3.
N1_N AC
^S_G EF_S
NK AC_K N1.
K N1_S N(
^S #*_K_N
N( ^S_N
8@ GB_N
D*O J@.
BWS VS_S %8 ON_M* XY_S KK VS_N BWS J@_N
(*N*_N & NVH. I BWS_S ZK JG P_BWS J*D.
F(*_1_G I BWS_S ZK:
VS ^S_S NS* LN
P_BWS J@ Q)Q* LN
XY_N EF_N VS ^S.
A*_1_G CC XY_S
AC_#* LN_N_I 9D_S
(D@* P_F(*_N K_N
N( ^S. F(* XY_N VS
^S_S_#* GC_I 9D.
BWS JS_N & NVH_S Y@
AC ZK VS ^S. BWS_S
8D P_1I_N EF XY_G
BWS_N (*N* J@_N &
NVH_S JGZ P_K_(*.
AC OF_P* BF OF_G
BWS_N (*N*_N &
NVH_S J*0 P_0NG.
BWS_N & NVH_S Q)Q* 9D
P_LN_S Q)Q* SS P_CC J*D.
D*O (Q_N F*0
CL_G BWS_1_S
9(_#*_K N N(
^S_N GB_N D*O
J@. JG_S J*D.
AB D*O
(Q ^3
G_H* BF_C*_S
NK AC (*N*_P*
(*N*_#*_K N_K
2F_N 5*Z ^S.
H*_S J*0 P_C* P_J@. J@_G_S #* ON J*D.
H* BF_S AC_K_I. I_S AC_K_N H* BF.
H* 9D_S NS* 5Q AC_I.
H* 9D_S NS* ES* AC_I. H* SS_S NS*
P_BF_#* N_I BWS. I BWS 9D_S NK_7
P_NS* 0NG P_RS_#* %R ^S R*^A. BWS 9D
J*D_S NK_7 P_OF_8* #*_K_N N( ^S_A*
8W*_P* 8W*_N 8@ JG_N_H* BF_1.
H* BF 9D_S_#* K J*D P_BWS_N & NVH. AB D*O
XS_N_K J@_G CB GC 5Q_P* CB RS 5Q_S E)* P_%R
4A AC 0S JG AC BWS 0S_N F*0 SS. BWS_S J*0
P_K_(*. I BWS_S AC 5*Z_K_N N( ^S AC 5*Z_K_N
8W*_P* 8W*_N 8@ JG. I BWS_S NK BF 9D. KK
I6_P* KK VS_S J*0. AB D*O NK_G BWS SS_S
XY! D*O 1_8*_G F*0_N BWS_I_S ^S! D*O NK_G
F*0_S NK JG SS. LN C*_S_#* 4A 8W*_N 5# RS.
LN_$_C* S_#*_K N 9(_P* RS JG! D*O_N
BWS_N &
NVH_S_(*!
Aw, too complicated. I’m gonna go and read ‘Sinfest’ now. 😉
Not until strip 1000? But… that’s in almost five years! *sob*
Hi guys,
Just working on a more formal transcription of the cipher, but, in the spirit of the Voynich, I wanted to pass this on to whomever might want to play with it. I present “Woonich EWA Hand.TTF” (European Woonich Alphabet).
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45067294/Woonich%20EWA%20Hand.ttf
It’s a truetype font I made of the cipher glyphs. Missing “opo” and a few punctuation marks (at this point, I notice ! and : are missing). But enjoy. 🙂
Here is another transcription, which aligns with the font I made.
[page 1]
–TOP–
BC>LRN XLRNSRN INXN LSIN: MU* YPD HYPDOPD JCQN ZUFEOFCI ML>N. >TISRT
XLRN MVRNSRT UAEOPDON. QUA BY*DOPD JCQL
LSIN: UOEPEBE YOHE HEHEOBDA. CIT XLRNSRN ZTIT LSINXN “XN KT>T”
KT>TS=TI MTXT TRL MTXTSRN KT>TSKTISXT ZN MVIUOWD WDAD EPE. JYAWC
KT>T KLIZU JE* EOHE PYJYOPE CIT XLRNSRN RVQNI LSQLISZN XUPDOYA
WEFEPE. JE*E WCITSLI MUAE
WCITSRT MUAE CITSRTSQUA
BY*D DFYOPD HCRN TRT
LSUAE HYPD. JYAWC
MVIUOPE CIT RTZL.
KLIZU WDHY<EOPE
ACQT MVIUOPD WEAE
YOAEBDA JE*E CITSRUA
JEAOHE WDHYTSXT MVIU.
–BOTTOM RIGHT–
WDADOWD JE*E
BGPDOPE CITSRN
QTXT KT>TSXT ZNIN.
XT ZNINSRN QTMN
MVRN RUAOHEOWD
FEBD BGPDOWD
FGPY PEBCSZN
KLIZU EPY.
[page 2]
–TOP–
BC>LRN XLRNSRN KUFD WCQTSQUA BY*?DOPD HEHE HYPDOWD BC>LRN TRLSZN
MNIZNISZN opo ZNXL=T. XN MU* YPDOPD BEHE EPE YOBC>LRN TIKL.
ITMNISINSRT XN MU*YPDOPD BEHE:
HYPD BGPDOPD WDPDA PGFE
YOBC>LRN TRL QLZLQLI RVQT
ML>NSZN UAEOWD HYPD BGPD.
JEAOADOPE *E*E BY*DOPD
JE*EOPCI RVQTSZNSXN XVKLSRN
MNKLRLI LSITMNISZN XTSZN
QTMN MVRN. ITMNI ML>NSZN XLRN
MVRNSRNSRUA PE*EOHD HGJY.
BC>LRN TRNSZN opo ZNXL=TSRN >NRL
KT>T MTXT XLRN MVRN. MU*YPDOPD
FGJY YOADHDOWD CIT ML>NSRT
MU*Y PDOWD BDAWDA EPYOWD opo
WDHY<EOPD EPEBE YOHEOBDA.
–BOTTOM LEFT–
JE*E WCITSLI MUAE WCITSRT
MU*YPDOWD BDAWDAOWD opo
WDHYLRNSZN opo ZNXL=TSRN QLZLQLI XVKL
LSRVQTSRN QLZLQLI RNRN LS>T>T TIKL.
[page 3]
–TOP LEFT–
KLIZU BDFYOWD AEAWE
*EPGOPE BC>LRNSINSRN
XVMNSRUAOHE WD FEBD
BGPDOWD PEBCOZN KLIZU
EPY. EPEOPD EAJY.
JEBC KLIZU
BDFY BGAC
–TOP MIDDLE–
10000
–TOP RIGHT–
RTS=TI MUAEO*EAOPD
FEHE JE*E BDAWDAOYA
BDAWDAOPCISXT ZNSXT
ILITSZN NIMT MVRN.
–BOTTOM–
=TISRN TIZT LS>TI LSTRL. TRLSRTSRN RUA WCQT TIKL.
=TI MUAEOPD JE*EOHEOHD. HDOPD JE*EOHEOWD TSXN.
=TI XVKLSRN ZNRNI UPDA JE*EOHD. LRN. XN MU* PD HGJYOPD FEHEOLRN XVKL
TIKLSRN QTXTS=U YOWCITSQNI RUAOHEOWD FEBD BGPDOJEA
FD*YAOYA FD* YAOWD FGPY EPEOWDO<EA BCITSIN.
[page 4]
–TOP–
=TI MUAE HGJYOPDOPCI XT TIKL LSMU* YPDOWD opo WDHYT NQLSLI >TMU HCRN NQLSRN UWYA YOJCXU
GJE JE*E WEPD EPE JE*E BC>LRN ZTRNSZN ITIZT RNRN. MU*YPDOPD EAWE
YOHEOBDA. HD BC>LRNSRN KT>T NIMTSXTSZN QTMN MVRN KT>T NIMTSXTSZN
QN>LISLI QN>LISZN QVRL TRT. XN MU* YPDOPD FEHE. BCIT XVKL. XTXT
XN=LSLI XTXT XLRNSRN TIZT. KTMU JYAWC QTXTSRT MU*YPD PDPDOPD
BY*D! JYAWC INSQNISRT ITIZTSZN MU*YPDOHDOPD BGPD! JYAWC QTXTSRT
ITIZTSRN QTXT TRT RNRN. RVQT >TISRNSRUA GJE FD*YAOWD DPC XUPD.
PGFEOJGO*EA PDOPCISXT ZN XVMNSLI XUPD EPE! JYAWCSZN
MU* YPDOWD opo
WDHY<EOPDOBDA!
Hmm…my first thought was the Indian language symbols. But there are some symbols on here that just don’t match up.
The following comment by mfb was eaten by the spam filter:
—
Nice. I paired the letters based on the digraph frequencies and got the same result as your word analysis (just at the pairs of “s#ci”, I was not sure).
Jamie proposed a Caesar chiffre: even if we identify letters of the source code that cannot work, as our alphabet is arbitrary. We have more than 26 ways to assign them (26!=26*25*…*1).
Problematic things:
The mentioned w which should be a z – I treat it as z.
We have two “o” ending a word in the transcription. In both cases, the next word begins with a “y”, and I think the space between the letters could be a regular spacing within a word. To fit the pattern, I removed the space in both cases.
We have one “o”, followed by a “p”. I can confirm the transcription, but that is the only deviation from the nice pattern, so it might be an error in the comic (similar to the one w). I ignored that issue.
A “w” ends the next to last word, it is the only occurence of that. I have no idea what to do with that.
Further analysis:
The switch symbols show the same digraph pattern as =nvb. I think that it is a regular letter, and switching between the two alphabets itself does not mean anything (we find the same words in both alphabets).
This leaves 3 groups: One with m/z (special characters), one group of 5 symbols, and one group of 8 symbols. To improve readability, I replaced the 5 symbols with vowels, m with x and z with y and the other 8 symbols with consonants from b to p. This produces text like
“lamu lixdu mibeydeyga abiyba famu bafa ekiyix famu”
I uploaded the result: http://en.pastebin.ca/2428118 (I had the option to encrypt that… 😀 )
Translation table:
m z = n v b r > h s # c i t e u
x y a e i o b d f g k l m p u u
Way easier to read than the original transcription, and I think it still has the full information content. All following letters refer to that modified text.
As building blocks, I get:
– 32 combinations consonant+vowel (6 of them are not used, two are used just once) (where twice the same combination can occur)
– single x/y (where xy and yx are possible)
– single vowels (but not two after each other)
We have “fafa” in the code, and there is no English or German word with two times a single letter and nothing else. Therefore, the 32 combinations are not just single letters or our words are not words.
Well… I made a digraph table of those 33 building blocks.
All building blocks except x/y prefer some other building blocks before/after them. As an example, “ba” occurs 39 times: It begins a word 6 times, it follows a “y” 19 times, “a” 11 times, “ka” 3 times, and nothing else.
“fi” occurs 29 times, 5 times as “kefix” and 24 times as “mufibe” – and nothing else is used in front of or behind “fi”.
Looks like we need a new idea.
@ mfb:
Personally, I don’t believe the pairs of letters hold any significant meaning beyond their equivalent single character.
This 100% brings the spaces into question, as like you said there is no word that is simply the same letter twice, let alone three such words!
@ Charles:
Its frankly impossible that a space is a single letter. All possible implementations of it end up with either too many single letter words like if you ended up with 3 letters as either “a or i” and the rest end up with 30-40 character words. Even assuming that 2 letters are required and ignoring the obvious single letter issue you still end up with 20+ character words.
If the transcription is correct as Novil says it is then I would imagine it has to use some sort of operator symbol to shift up 15 letters into the at the very least needed 8 letters. Z,Q,X,J being the least used characters in english.
I think Its fairly clear that the letter pairings must be important otherwise there would be now clear seperation in the character mappings.
@ Jamie:
What do you mean “otherwise there would be clear separation”? 5 letters are always at the end, 2 are wild, and the rest are always at the start!
Even if there’s a flaw related to the wildcards, the double character location still has a very clear pattern.
I know I’m starting late but I’ve noticed a few things that I haven’t seen anyone mention yet.
The very first two words strike me as a name, and according to the transcriptions given by Novil they repeat right after he colon.
And on the third page bottom paragraph, the first few lines look like mandates, or commandments. Likely in exchange for the gifts bestowed upon them by the raccoon goddess.
@ Whatthisface:
What? No, 13 letters may be at the start, 5+1 at the end, z is never at the start or end. 5 letters are followed by 8 or wildcard, 8 by 5 or wildcard. Z always separates at least two letters from the rest of the word. There exist word groups like “c=h=zc=mzs=” and “c=mzs=”, which are sometimes followed by the same words (/z=r=i= vzs= : =r=i= vzs=zinm), leading me to think that “z” has something to do with spacing. For all I know it may be a comma, though… dunno. Doesn’t seem to fit quite right.
As mentioned above, there are not enough words with only two repeats in English / etc (baba papa mama). So letter-to-letter seems out. *sigh*
@ Satsuoni:
yeah, that’s something that gets me, spacing may be anywhere between original spacing or completely random. It just strikes me as odd that the first two words are the exact same as the fifth and sixth, and then begin the second page
certain word patterns are there that I wouldn’t expect considering you’ve cracked only a couple steps
@ Whatthisface:
Probably not random per se, just something we have not figured out yet. Of course, where do the missing symbols come from are also important. As for the patterns – there is a limited number of things you can do to text: polyalphabetic/polyphonic substitution/fractionation/permutation, etc. And some of them commute, yet others form a group. So, well, the point is, several methods applied in order might look like just a single different method.
Also, I think I’ve kept this hint long enough, so I am releasing it in the wild. In the mail, Novil said:
“Another reader posted a very curious result pretty early. It’s still present in the new transcription, but not many code breakers seem to have understood its significance.”
Whatever that means 🙂
@Novil: sorry, I am going to release your hints if I am cannot use them myself. Please tell me if I should stop.
If Novil’s referring to the spacing, I still don’t know what it actually means.
What sort of encoding would result in what we have?
@ Satsuoni:
I’d like to hazard that Novil’s hint is referring to the lack of double letters in either original or reduced transcripts, as mentioned by @ Phlosioneer.
If this is the case, I can think of three possibilities for how it came to be:
1. Novil specifically tried to get rid of double letters with some trick separate from the next full layer of encoding.
2. The nature of this layer of encoding makes it impossible to get double letters.
3. The nature of this layer of encoding made it possible for Novil to choose things in such a way that there are no double letters.
I’m focusing on the second possibility because it would be the most informative if true, but the first and third are conceivable too (I can think of ways they would happen though I haven’t tested them or don’t know how you would figure them out). What do you guys think?
@ Charles:
Essentially if the letters didn’t have some meaning to their pairing what you would get is a randomly distribution of pairs everywhere. Since there is basically a large portion of pairs completely absent from the text which is fairly large at around 2000 characters this very strongly suggests that pairs have actual meaning.
@ Satsuoni:
I’ve been thinking about types of ciphers in the world and a couple interesting ones popped up which may hold simliarity to whats here.
First was one called checkerboard which has numbers 1-9 at the top of a table then numbers blank, 2, and 6 as rows. Essentially the alphbet is randomly thrown into the table . Any letter that is in the blank row is itself lets say its a “1” and anything that in a row with a number than its the row number followed by the column say “25”;
This method preseves spacing and punctuation so in my mind a simliar method could have been used to transposed the alphabet into numbers then into symbols.
Another method uses diagraph pairs to encode everything. The alphabet is shortened to 25 letters by using i/j having the same code and only replaced by context. Since j only consists of less than 1% of english text its rare its used ever. The main one is a cipher called playfair and doesn’t keep spacing.
Using a cipher statistics for index of coniencidence and the roughness of the text the numbers point to the cipher being simple subsitution or polygraphic subsitution based ciphers like playfair or checkerboard. These differ from the polyalphabetic shifting ciphers since they completely hide any frequency analysis possible save for frequency of diagraphs.
If it does end up being a 5×5 playfair I could probably brute force the key out but the combinations will take a very long time since there are quite a few million combinations possible.
Let us pray the cipher isn’t one time pad based since that cipher uses random text as long as the text to be ciphered as the key. Virtually impossible to crack save a lot of brute forcing and even then likely will be impossible.
@ Bartimaeus:
1. The [plain] text is likely partially in both English and German.
That sounds very likely. However, I strongly suspect that a person who knows only one of these languages will not be at a very significant disadvantage in deciphering it. As has been said, it’s highly unlikely to be a basic gradeschool-spy-code-book mono-alphabetic substitution cipher.
2. The author has almost DEFINITELY messed around with word spacing or something that would create a similar effect. I suspect short words have been stuck to longer words or something similar.
I suspect that either the very first step of “encipherment” (which would be easiest to arrange) or the very last (which could be rather interesting) is linguistic rather than mathematical and involves an invented orthography, which probably draws heavily on some of the conventions used in certain well-known Germanic languages. Among other things, there may be letters that encode phoneme sequences (like “x” in English, which is usually pronounced the same as “ks”), digraphs (like “sh” in English), phonemes that can be spelled more than one different way (like “j” / “dg” / “g” in English), and letters that have more than one possible phonetic reading (like “g” in “guilt” versus “g” in “German”). If the author knows very much about real languages, he probably included at least a small handful of realistic orthographic wrinkles. (An example of an orthographic wrinkle in English is the way words of Anglo-Saxon origin use a completely different mapping of vowel letters to vowel sounds, as compared to words of Latin, Greek, or French origin. Of the languages I have studied, the one with the largest number of orthographic wrinkles is Japanese; but English is second. The one with the fewest is Spanish.)
I’m the first to admit that I have no idea where to start with the decryption. However I will put down my two cents about the artwork, maybe that will help with the decryption somehow (this is assuming that the words and pictures correlate).
I think someone mentioned norse mythology in reference to the first page but I think the artists went for something different. I not sure but I think the tree was always there, instead of it being created by Seeoahlahmakaskay. Its more that she guards or protects it from the wolf and eagle. Or It way be that she was there when the tree was born, as it looks more like a sapling then a full grown oak. The flaming weasels at the bottom, still no idea.
The second page appears more straight forward. It looks like she’s gifting or teaching the raccoons the skills they have today. In the first page all four of her limb ends were glowing but not just one, maybe she’s giving up some of her own power to her “children”? The three circles in the top right look like they’re describing what she gave them.The bottom one would be hearing or improved senses to better observe the world and sense threats. The top right one is a hand, maybe to represent their skill of stealing and manipulating objects. I’m not sure about the top left but I think it would apply to the raccoons skill at opening locks and using tools.
The third page looks like its showing the options the raccoons will face in the future, which might answer why there’s 10000 at the top, it s prediction of the future. On the left you have a cage, prision for a raccoon. It looks to be on fire and underground perhaps to represent hell as that would the worst thing for a raccoon to suffer, not being free. On the right side though is what appears to be urbanization with power lines, and buildings mixed in with the trees. Their only other option to avoid imprisonment looks to be adapting to the new world. The halved raccoon also shows this I think, living free or dying trapped.
The fourth page I really don’t have a lot of ideas. It looks like the eagle from the first page is burning down where the raccoons live. This could connect to Seeoahlahmakaskay giving away her power to the raccoons and being unable to hold off both the wolf and the eagle. However the tree in the back left corner (really small random detail, I know) looks very similar to the right side of page three. So maybe the raccoons weren’t moving to civilization but were already somewhere living without humans and then the eagle burned it down. Which would mean now is the point in which they move into the human world. The bird headed man appears to be telling or ordering them to leave but he also appears to have been free, as he still has what looks like handcuffs on one wrist. Maybe the raccoons freed him and in exchanges he’s letting them escape as their home is destroyed.
Not sure how much of this may or may not be right but I hope it helps someone
@Jamie
It’s impossible that it’s a true one time pad as there are repeated words in the text. Proper one time pads (where the pad is random), you’re right, cannot be decoded without the key — but if the pad comes from a text, they are certainly breakable.
It’s highly unlikely to be a playfair as there are plenty of words containing an odd number of characters. But it may have certainly been pre-treated like a playfair (that is, all letter pairs have had a character inserted between them). That probably would require another frequency analysis.
On second thought, scratch that. Could be a playfair, but it shouldn’t be significantly more difficult to mount an attack on a random tableau than a keyed tableau. The character encoding just makes this more tricky as a 5×5 tableau only has 25 characters.
@ ekimmak:
One fairly obvious way to make frequency analysis difficult, which I came up with in gradeschool, is to have six or eight characters each for common sound (two or three for less common sounds) and then introduce characters that mean things like “skip the character three positions to the right of this one”, “skip the character seven positions to the left of this one”, “skip the next eleven distinct characters after this one, plus any repetitions of the first ten until you come to the eleventh”, “ignore all instances of the character right before this one”, and so on. You need precise rules for what order to apply them in (so that when the ranges of two skips overlap you always know whether an already skipped character counts as one of the ones you are skipping now), but that’s fairly trivial, and the whole deciphering process can be carried out easily in-place with a pencil right there on the received message. (Creating the cipher text is somewhat harder but can still be done with pencil and paper.)
In computerized cryptography it is usual to do compression (at least Huffman-tree coding, often something more sophisticated) as the first step of the cipher, before performing the actual crypto math. This makes most obvious forms of frequency analysis (like looking for the most common character and assuming it’s E) largely inapplicable, since efficient compression algorithms are, by virtue of their main purpose of making the file smaller, designed to eliminate the kind of redundancy that frequency analysis exploits. Serious crypto systems do have to take some of the compression algorithms’ incidental properties into account and somehow ensure that analysis will not easily reveal possibly significant metadata, and also to ensure that the compression does not accidentally introduce a known-plaintext vulnerability. So it can be a bit tricky to do perfectly. Nonetheless, building compression into a crypto system, if done at all well, has a strong tendency to make frequency analysis a LOT less useful than it would otherwise be.
I’m fairly confident, based on the author’s comments, that The Book of Woo does not use any computationally significant compression. Maybe really light compression like what the Windows BMP image format has, but nothing (compression-wise) that would make frequency analysis useless; because that would also make pencil-and-paper decipherment impractical, even for someone who knows the key, and the author implied that TBOW doesn’t do anything like that.
However, that still leaves the possibility of pencil-and-paper-friendly anti-frequency-analysis countermeasures. The aforementioned one that I came up with in gradeschool would be just one example of the kind of thing he could have done. (I’m not suggesting he did that specific thing. It’s just an example of the general kind of thing that’s possible.)
@ Ryan:
Also, most of those kinds of ciphers are difficult to decode with pencil and paper even if you are the intended recipient and have all the relevant secret keys. You don’t need a modern computer (there were mechanical devices for it in the early twentieth century — they were militarily important in WWII), but pencil and paper really wouldn’t be practical. My understanding of the author’s comments about The Book of Woo implies that each of the N decoding/decrypting steps is entirely pencil-and-paper-friendly. So my instinct is to rule out continuously rotating polyalphabetic ciphers.
I think “tricks” (like red herring / null-value characters, digraphs, homophones, shorthand-inspired semi-obscure abbreviations, non-standard text flow order, linguistics-inspired semantic games, and the like) are far more likely.
If I were creating a code like this, I’d probably typeset the plaintext in a standard image format (such as PNG), render the resulting file in base 26 or so, assign characters to each possible digit, and go from there. But I don’t think that would result in the sort of repeating patterns we’re seeing here, so I don’t think it’s what the author did.
@ Jonadab:
Possibly phonetic? I recently had a discussion that the Voynich star charts might be possibly realized as a phonetic transcription of Arabic on the Ancient Cryptography forum (but haven’t really been working hard at it).
Well, judging by the comments, we’ll have to wait at least a year before the solution is revealed.
And when I said comments, I meant poll.
Hey, if you look at the quotes at the top of the page, there are a few things I’ve noticed.
1) None of the quotes make any sense whatsoever in any language.
2) The people all have to do with codes in some way; in fact, some of them may not exist (Beale, for example, is thought to have never actually existed; there is no proof he ever did)
3) Perhaps, these people who the quotes are “by” are linked to the Woo cipher somehow? And perhaps the quotes themselves are encoded, and if we can decode them, we might perhaps find clues to the Woo cipher?
swishaa218 wrote:
On page 1, Novil mentioned the four passages are unrelated to the “Book of Woo”.
“Psidms sid Vjj cp ktmr ojgd.” – Thomas Jefferson Beale [1820] was solved 15 September 2012.
Two of the remaining three are as follows:
“Sandra and Woo is to die for.” – H. C. Reynolds [1948]
“Sandra and Woo is out of this world.” – Antonio Averlino [1465]
Still working out the last one (“Andrsn nds Chh fd smosud wsntdkdfah.” – Sámuel Literáti Nemes [1833])
I can see the tableau and I can pull out:
“Sandra and Woo is always ——-ing.”
But I don’t know the encryption method.
@ Phil:
So what was the method for the two you solved?