Decipher: Statistics-Based Translation Applied to Decoding

choi

John Markoff, How Revolutionary Tools Cracked a 1700s Code.
New York Times, Oct 25, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/2 ... q=cipher&st=cse
("That insight led to a generation of statistics-based language programs like Google Translate — and, not so incidentally, to new tools for breaking codes that go back to the Middle Ages")

Note:
(a) The report mentioned "the Copiale Cipher * * * The name comes from one of only two non-coded inscriptions in the document."

(i) Copiale cipher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copiale_cipher
(The only plain text in the book is "Copiales 3" at the end and "Philipp 1866" on the flyleaf. Philipp is thought to have been an owner of the manuscript)
(ii) cipher (n; Middle English, from Medieval Latin cifra, from Arabic ṣifr empty, cipher, zero; First Known Use: 14th century):
"1a: ZERO
* * *
2a : a method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning — compare CODE 3b
b : a message in code"
www.m-w.com

(b) homophone (n): "one of two or more words pronounced alike but different in meaning or derivation or spelling (as the words to, too, and two)"
(c) colon (punctuation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colon_(punctuation)
(d) Zodiac Killer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer
(The killer's identity remains unknown)
(e) Kryptos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos
(Of the four messages, three have been solved, with the fourth remaining one of the most famous unsolved codes in the world; The name Kryptos comes from the Greek word for "hidden", and the theme of the sculpture is "intelligence gathering.")
(f) The report commented "the white whale of the code-breaking world is the Voynich manuscript."

(i) A white whale is a beluga whale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beluga_whale
(The English name comes from the Russian белуха (belukha), which derives from the word белый (belyy), meaning "white". It is sometimes referred to by scientists as the belukha whale to avoid confusion with the beluga sturgeon.)

(ii) Leviathan (album)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(album)
includes a song "Blood and Thunder" whose lyrics includes the wors "White whale--holy grail."
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyr ... 0B748256F6C0007CE46

English dictionaries all say white whale is an mammal, but apparently from the context of the NYT report, white whale means holy grail.

(g) Voynich manuscript
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript
(The book is named after the Polish-Lithuanian-American book dealer Wilfrid M. Voynich [1865-1930; Polish], who acquired it in 1912. The Voynich manuscript is owned by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University)
(h) vellum (n; Middle English velym, from Anglo-French velim, veeslin, from *veelin, adjective, of a calf, from veel calf — more at VEAL):
"a fine-grained unsplit lambskin, kidskin, or calfskin prepared especially for writing on or for binding books"