Cipher Mysteries

It's time for a new Voynich research direction! Thanks to Benedek Lang's "Unlocked Books", I'm starting to realise that I've perhaps spent too long thinking solely about codicology of the single text, when what is often as important is the 'codicological context' - i.e. the collection of other (but presumably conceptually related in some way) texts that were bound alongside by ...

Just a quick reminder that the next Voynich pub meet is set for 4pm this very Sunday (i.e. 5th September 2010) at the Prospect of Whitby, 57 Wapping Wall, London E1W 3SH. Though plenty of Voynicheros are hoping to come along, as always we'll just have to see who manages to get there on the day... Incidentally, if for some random reason - you ...

I hack, you hack, he/she hacks, we hack, they hack - whether you're tying something to your key-ring with string, or trying "Username=admin / Password=admin", you're officially a hacker. Furthermore, says well-known YCombinator startup guy Paul Graham, the word "hack"... ...can be either a compliment or an insult. It's called a hack when you do something in an ugly ...

Many historians and palaeographers have concluded that the interleaved '+' signs added to the Voynich Manuscript's back page indicate that the containing text is some kind of spell, incantation, chant, charm, curse, pious utterance, etc. Well, it's completely true that '+' was used in all of the preceding forms to indicate that the (non-silent) reader should physically trace out the sign of the cross at ...

Do you sometimes find rationality soooo boring? Well, I think I might just have the perfect Voynich theory to fit your fickle mood: & it runs like this... "After destroying Atlantis, the alien Sauron changed his name to Jehovah [...] His most recent appearance was in Berlin where Adolf Hitler was brain washed into thinking he could conquer the world. Sauron ...

Though the Voynich Manuscript has many unusual and interesting sections, arguably the most boring of the lot is Quire 20 ('Q20'). This comprises a thick-ish set of six text-only bifolios (though with a central bifolio missing), where just about every paragraph has a tiny drawing of a star/flower/comet shape attached to it. Tally all these up, and you find that Q20 as it now is has between 345 ...

Just a quick note to say that I've been working behind the scenes for a few weeks on a revised Cipher Mysteries home page, incorporating a nice clickable list of what I think are the top unsolved cipher mysteries of all time, some of which you may not have heard of:- (--Top secret, yet to be announced--) The Voynich Manuscript The Anthon Transcript The Beale Papers The Rohonc ...

I've waited a decade to find anything good on the Rohonc Codex (and don't get me started on Wikipedia yet again), so it is with great delight that I read Benedek Lang's April 2010 Cryptologia article "Why Don't We Decipher an Outdated Cipher System? The Codex of Rohonc" that he kindly mentioned in a comment on this site a few days ago. Despite ...

OK, after the obligatory minor horse-trading, the next Voynich historical pub meet is now set for 4pm on Sunday 5th September 2010 at The Prospect of Whitby in Wapping. Philip Neal, Marke Fincher, and John Kozak are all on for this, and I hope to see several more of you other lovely Voynicheros appearing on the day ...

"Can you stop being so goddamn Voynich?" Dan shouted down the phone at her continued silence. "I'm sick of reading between your lines, playing guess-what-Marie-means like our whole off-line life is some afternoon quiz show. Since our shared New Haven hajj, you've been no fun - zero fun - and all I'm getting from you are stupid little clues that even the Cipher Mysteries guy wouldn't ...