"Insoluble" comes from the letter that W.B. Tyler wrote to Poe, "...and they would doubtless imagine that the more complicated the method of constructing such a cipher, the more insoluble -- to use a chemical expression -- would be the puzzle...."
I have a couple of comments. I've been trying to get into Poe's head here, and I am finding that he would specifically be looking for ways to spoil the typical way of solving these cyphers. Like backward words in the previous example.
Since he solved hundreds of these, he is really in tune with what is used to solve these (which are the trails that most of you seem to be following.) I would expect him to try to foil all or most of those techniques.
I believe that it is solveable. It's a bit too perfect to not be (see what I say later.) And from what scant information I have read that Poe has said about these puzzles, he seems like he would be quite opposed to publishing one that didn't work. And man, did he spend some time typing it in just for a hoax.
6 character sets, or a mutiple of 6, gets us dangerously close to 26 with a multiplier of 4 (6 * 4 ?). Maybe conincidence.
Observations: You all know this already, but I see 6 classes of 26 characters: lg cap normal, sm cap normal, lg lower normal, lg cap inverted, sm cap inverted, lg lower inverted.
The spaces _look_ like they really could represent spaces. Frequency is about right, and spacing of words seems right.
Take a look at the first 3 lines of the cypher and you will find that there are almost no repeated characters (if you provide that he is using 6 "alphabets.") Repeats come in to play after you go on for a while. I think that there is an alphabet cycling routine going on here, so that the frequency would be perfectly flat! There is NO WAY that this is conincidence.
Notice that, unlike normal words, I don't see any words with repeated letters. This is not simple substitution.
Although I haven't really dug in yet, it seems to be that the different character sets happen more in some instances and less in others. The existence of OGXEW in the very beginning seems to me to be a clue of his algorhythm getting "started" and not into perfect hiding quite yet.
For the 2-d or 3-d theories out there (my theory was that upside down letters were to be read from the bottom to the top, etc.), it's just too darn hard to do such perfect flat freqency if you are dealing with multiple threads of meaning throughout the message. Probably would have taken a computer.
Poe is trying to heavily mask frequency analysis.
Well, that's my $.02.. I'd be interested if anyone could build on this.
Slashdot Mirror
"Insoluble" comes from the letter that W.B. Tyler wrote to Poe, "...and they would doubtless imagine that the more complicated the method of constructing such a cipher, the more insoluble -- to use a chemical expression -- would be the puzzle...."
I have a couple of comments. I've been trying to get into Poe's head here, and I am finding that he would specifically be looking for ways to spoil the typical way of solving these cyphers. Like backward words in the previous example.
Since he solved hundreds of these, he is really in tune with what is used to solve these (which are the trails that most of you seem to be following.) I would expect him to try to foil all or most of those techniques.
I believe that it is solveable. It's a bit too perfect to not be (see what I say later.) And from what scant information I have read that Poe has said about these puzzles, he seems like he would be quite opposed to publishing one that didn't work. And man, did he spend some time typing it in just for a hoax.
6 character sets, or a mutiple of 6, gets us dangerously close to 26 with a multiplier of 4 (6 * 4 ?). Maybe conincidence.
Observations:
You all know this already, but I see 6 classes of 26 characters: lg cap normal, sm cap normal, lg lower normal, lg cap inverted, sm cap inverted, lg lower inverted.
The spaces _look_ like they really could represent spaces. Frequency is about right, and spacing of words seems right.
Take a look at the first 3 lines of the cypher and you will find that there are almost no repeated characters (if you provide that he is using 6 "alphabets.") Repeats come in to play after you go on for a while. I think that there is an alphabet cycling routine going on here, so that the frequency would be perfectly flat! There is NO WAY that this is conincidence.
Notice that, unlike normal words, I don't see any words with repeated letters. This is not simple substitution.
Although I haven't really dug in yet, it seems to be that the different character sets happen more in some instances and less in others. The existence of OGXEW in the very beginning seems to me to be a clue of his algorhythm getting "started" and not into perfect hiding quite yet.
For the 2-d or 3-d theories out there (my theory was that upside down letters were to be read from the bottom to the top, etc.), it's just too darn hard to do such perfect flat freqency if you are dealing with multiple threads of meaning throughout the message. Probably would have taken a computer.
Poe is trying to heavily mask frequency analysis.
Well, that's my $.02.. I'd be interested if anyone could build on this.
E. Actually, ENT. Like Ear-Nose-Throat Doctor.