I made a substantial enlargement on
"French ciphers during the Reign of Henry III of France"
by adding about a dozen reconstructed ciphers. Most of them are symbol ciphers similar to each other, but two are numerical ciphers.
06/08/2019
Three New Vatican Challenges
A private email made me aware of three new Vatican challenge ciphertexts posted by George Lasry at MTC3. I spent many days on the Part 4 and Part 5 ciphertexts, but my attempts with methods described in, e.g., "Ciphertext-only Attack on "Vatican Challenge" Ciphers (1625, 1628)" have been unsuccessful.
The challenge ciphertexts are as follows:
The Vatican Challenge - Part 3 ... a short message dated "Brusseles 9 Oct. 1721", consisting of one- to four-digit figures.
The Vatican Challenge - Part 4 ... a letter from the bishop of Senigallia to the Secretariat, consisting of figures. The cleartext seems to include the date "Marzo 1536."
The Vatican Challenge - Part 5 ... The cleartext seems to include the date "Aprile 1542." According to the introduction of the challenge, this letter is in a bundle of "Lett. Orig. e cifre del card. Farnese al nunzio, 4 oct 1539-24 nov. 1548. ff. 7-123."
My article "Variable-Length Symbols in Italian Numerical Ciphers" describes various types of Vatican figure ciphers.
I guess the Part 4 cipher is something like the cipher for Cardinal Savello (1583) in that the same digit may have a value of its own and may also be a part of a two-digit symbol with a different value (e.g., "3"="i", "1"="o", but "31"="f"). See pdf for contexts of some frequent patterns in KWIC.
I guess the Part 5 cipher is something like Cardinal of Carpi's cipher with Granvelle (1548-1549). If so, there will be a difficulty in telling if a two-figure combination has a value of its own or is a part of a three-digit symbol (e.g., "90"="s", "901"="g"). See pdf for contexts of a frequent pattern and "^".
At present, I feel the ciphers are not polyphonic. But a polyphonic cipher like that of the bishop of Nazareth (1585) cannot be totally excluded.
Any ideas?
The challenge ciphertexts are as follows:
The Vatican Challenge - Part 3 ... a short message dated "Brusseles 9 Oct. 1721", consisting of one- to four-digit figures.
The Vatican Challenge - Part 4 ... a letter from the bishop of Senigallia to the Secretariat, consisting of figures. The cleartext seems to include the date "Marzo 1536."
The Vatican Challenge - Part 5 ... The cleartext seems to include the date "Aprile 1542." According to the introduction of the challenge, this letter is in a bundle of "Lett. Orig. e cifre del card. Farnese al nunzio, 4 oct 1539-24 nov. 1548. ff. 7-123."
My article "Variable-Length Symbols in Italian Numerical Ciphers" describes various types of Vatican figure ciphers.
I guess the Part 4 cipher is something like the cipher for Cardinal Savello (1583) in that the same digit may have a value of its own and may also be a part of a two-digit symbol with a different value (e.g., "3"="i", "1"="o", but "31"="f"). See pdf for contexts of some frequent patterns in KWIC.
I guess the Part 5 cipher is something like Cardinal of Carpi's cipher with Granvelle (1548-1549). If so, there will be a difficulty in telling if a two-figure combination has a value of its own or is a part of a three-digit symbol (e.g., "90"="s", "901"="g"). See pdf for contexts of a frequent pattern and "^".
At present, I feel the ciphers are not polyphonic. But a polyphonic cipher like that of the bishop of Nazareth (1585) cannot be totally excluded.
Any ideas?
04/08/2019
Beware of Leading Zeros when Using Microsoft Excel
I described how to do frequency count with Microsoft Excel in "Frequency Count (with Microsoft Excel)". Now, I found the COUNTIF function of Microsoft Excel ignores leading zeros, even if the cell category is set to "Text". So, if "12" and "012" needs to be distinguished, some measures have to be taken to force Excel to interpret these as text instead of numbers. I added a note on this matter.
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