While she draws no glib conclusions, the fact that a manuscript that has been in hand for 300 years with professional linguists and cryptologists attempting to decipher it, and it turns out to just be a fairly obvious substitution cipher with word level anagrams on old-Italian...yes, that's an extraordinary claim. I'm sorry if you don't like rational skepticism, but I find it works well for me.
Perhaps, but it's a pretty lame paper. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. CLaiming that as an outsider, a person cracked something that linguists and cryptographers have been attempting to decrypt for well over 50 years is an extraordinary claim, and that paper is no extraordinary proof. Also, you're being a bit dismissive of the letter distribution reasoning. Italian, even ancient Italian, is not some lost language. Philologists know the letter distributions for the whole gamut of spelling grammar and vocabulary changes, thanks to period texts, and predictable language shifts (for example, see Grimm's law). If the character frequency matched up to any known language, this would've been uncovered by now.
Regardless of how much it does or does not look like Da Vinci's hand, I very much agree with your second paragraph. She sounds like a lovely armchair investigator; happily and quietly posting her suppositions on her own website (though the website begs for a CV; it'd be nice to know in what field and from where that Ph.D originates). I find it no different from my enjoyment in tinkering with the Millennium Prize Problems when I have no business doing so.
The problem I have is with the story submitter. Would it have been so difficult to discover that this paper specifically was debunked 10 months ago, and what was written like the first few days of a breakthrough has yet to come to any fruition. I think it's a little mean to force her to stand up to slashdot peer review. Worse and plain irritating for the summary to be so exaggerant of the claim. If it was like "Here's a cute theory, she thinks it was Da Vinci, and believes she has a couple lines translated!" then a fun discussion would be had by all sans the unwarranted excitement.
Yes. Yes it would. If the claim is that it's just a substitution + anagram cipher, then the character frequencies would stay the same as the plaintext of this language. And even for ancient languages, these frequencies are known. Even despite the fact that ancient writing tended to be phonetic, and thus varied greatly on dialect; philologists take all this into account. The conclusion is that the frequencies don't match any of them. And no cryptographer is going to analyze an ancient document and presume it will translate to modern Italian. That'd be about as stupid as postulating that it was penned by an 8 year old Leonardo Da Vinci...oh wait.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The burden of proof is on TFA Author. She has provided none. That's why you can claim bullshit without bothering to explain why she's wrong. That, and the fact that it is indeed bullshit.
Philologists know the progression of Italian going all the way back to latin pretty darn well (which is all really quite interesting). letter distribution is either known, or can be very reliably extrapolated for just about any year you want.
I said the same thing when this was still in "recent". If there's been genuine cryptanalysis on it, and there has, an anagram cipher would show up immediately. I can't find any information on who this edith sherwood (Ph.D!) is, but a simple google search on her name popped up with that informative link.
The trick is to teleport into your own brain, and tear out your common sense. Then you will be able to pick up the "tea" and the "no tea" at the same time. The ship's computer will be so impressed by this feat that it will finally open the door for you and you can begin to explore Magrathea.
While I agree that the project doesn't really need new contributors, I still haven't come across this "trying to drive contributors off" thing I keep hearing about. I had no problems getting into Wikipedia, and I've had no problems helping others contribute to it. Yes, like everywhere on the Internet, there are dicks and trolls (a couple of which are indeed admins), but they can be ignored or overruled.
And this will stop being true for LTE (4g). Since the handset acts as a server for certain communications, it requires at least one dedicated IP address per active subscriber. Mobile File-sharing won't be a major issue until 4G proliferates anyway.
There's nothing wrong with forward thinking. As mobile broadband becomes faster and cheaper, which it inevitably will, this will become more and more of an issue. Potentially, people can and will use their mobile provider as their sole ISP. Meaning, if they want to do file-sharing, it will be over their mobile network.
FUD? Is the Microsoft sales staff rhetorically asking people how they can be completely sure that their open source operating system will survive 2012? Those bastards! Still...maybe I should switch to Windows 7...Ya know, just to be safe.
Slashdot Mirror
While she draws no glib conclusions, the fact that a manuscript that has been in hand for 300 years with professional linguists and cryptologists attempting to decipher it, and it turns out to just be a fairly obvious substitution cipher with word level anagrams on old-Italian...yes, that's an extraordinary claim. I'm sorry if you don't like rational skepticism, but I find it works well for me.
Perhaps, but it's a pretty lame paper. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. CLaiming that as an outsider, a person cracked something that linguists and cryptographers have been attempting to decrypt for well over 50 years is an extraordinary claim, and that paper is no extraordinary proof. Also, you're being a bit dismissive of the letter distribution reasoning. Italian, even ancient Italian, is not some lost language. Philologists know the letter distributions for the whole gamut of spelling grammar and vocabulary changes, thanks to period texts, and predictable language shifts (for example, see Grimm's law). If the character frequency matched up to any known language, this would've been uncovered by now.
Regardless of how much it does or does not look like Da Vinci's hand, I very much agree with your second paragraph. She sounds like a lovely armchair investigator; happily and quietly posting her suppositions on her own website (though the website begs for a CV; it'd be nice to know in what field and from where that Ph.D originates). I find it no different from my enjoyment in tinkering with the Millennium Prize Problems when I have no business doing so.
The problem I have is with the story submitter. Would it have been so difficult to discover that this paper specifically was debunked 10 months ago, and what was written like the first few days of a breakthrough has yet to come to any fruition. I think it's a little mean to force her to stand up to slashdot peer review. Worse and plain irritating for the summary to be so exaggerant of the claim. If it was like "Here's a cute theory, she thinks it was Da Vinci, and believes she has a couple lines translated!" then a fun discussion would be had by all sans the unwarranted excitement.
Yes. Yes it would. If the claim is that it's just a substitution + anagram cipher, then the character frequencies would stay the same as the plaintext of this language. And even for ancient languages, these frequencies are known. Even despite the fact that ancient writing tended to be phonetic, and thus varied greatly on dialect; philologists take all this into account. The conclusion is that the frequencies don't match any of them. And no cryptographer is going to analyze an ancient document and presume it will translate to modern Italian. That'd be about as stupid as postulating that it was penned by an 8 year old Leonardo Da Vinci...oh wait.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The burden of proof is on TFA Author. She has provided none. That's why you can claim bullshit without bothering to explain why she's wrong. That, and the fact that it is indeed bullshit.
Philologists know the progression of Italian going all the way back to latin pretty darn well (which is all really quite interesting). letter distribution is either known, or can be very reliably extrapolated for just about any year you want.
yeah, don't worry. You can read it. It's total garbage. Not a crack at all. TFA was debunked back in February. (in case you miss the link above: http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2009/02/17/edith-sherwoods-anagram-cipher )
I said the same thing when this was still in "recent". If there's been genuine cryptanalysis on it, and there has, an anagram cipher would show up immediately. I can't find any information on who this edith sherwood (Ph.D!) is, but a simple google search on her name popped up with that informative link.
The trick is to teleport into your own brain, and tear out your common sense. Then you will be able to pick up the "tea" and the "no tea" at the same time. The ship's computer will be so impressed by this feat that it will finally open the door for you and you can begin to explore Magrathea.
This post does not have nearly enough blinking/underlined/multicolored words in all caps to be believable.
I just wish they'd bring back Crystal Gravy. I don't care what people say, I could totally taste the difference.
While I agree that the project doesn't really need new contributors, I still haven't come across this "trying to drive contributors off" thing I keep hearing about. I had no problems getting into Wikipedia, and I've had no problems helping others contribute to it. Yes, like everywhere on the Internet, there are dicks and trolls (a couple of which are indeed admins), but they can be ignored or overruled.
And this will stop being true for LTE (4g). Since the handset acts as a server for certain communications, it requires at least one dedicated IP address per active subscriber. Mobile File-sharing won't be a major issue until 4G proliferates anyway.
There's nothing wrong with forward thinking. As mobile broadband becomes faster and cheaper, which it inevitably will, this will become more and more of an issue. Potentially, people can and will use their mobile provider as their sole ISP. Meaning, if they want to do file-sharing, it will be over their mobile network.
I'm afraid Stallman is not eligible for the Peace Prize. He just can't stop murdering people with that darned samurai sword!
Um, yes, that's why I mentioned it.
Unless you have a gigantic Jiffypop skillet in the foyer! Then it's popcorn for everybody! (At least until the Mythbusters go and ruin my fun.)
Hey, relax, guy! I can change!
I think all sugarless gums are sorta nasty, but as they go, Trident isn't too bad!
Microsoft's solution to inefficient resource utilization == throw more hardware at it.
Or a Wookie Life Day. *danger chord*
FUD? Is the Microsoft sales staff rhetorically asking people how they can be completely sure that their open source operating system will survive 2012? Those bastards! Still...maybe I should switch to Windows 7...Ya know, just to be safe.
Hey wait...This is actually a gooder than usual point from an AC.
I believe you're thinking NORAD...though I guess NASA could do it too...
My God! If the robots aren't looking for John Conner, that must mean they've already found him! WE'RE DOOMED!