On Codes and The Rule of Four

General comments on “substitution” codes.

This is the most favorite type of code; The Rule of Four, and many others, rely on. It consists of a text which is a “dummy text”, containing the real, secret text which can be found when the code is applied to the dummy text. For instance, the simplest code is to read every third letter, or substitute a different letter for each one in the text. This is easier said than done. Let’s try:

Secret Text (ST):

Paul Hoffman is a very critical person.

Let’s “encode it” by substituting the next letter for each of the ST. Of course, in a real code we would not use capital letters or punctuations, because they are a dead giveaway. We obtain:

rbtm ipggnbo jt b wfsz dsjujdbm rfstpo.

Of course, this makes no sense. But anyone solving the code would easily realize that it is a code, not a text (let’s call it the dummy text, DT, masquerading as a real text, ST).

I challenge anyone to create a simple substitution code such that it codes the ST into a meaningful sentence (the DT). Try it. Not easy though possible. But imagine if the ST were an entire page, let alone a chapter, as is in The Rule of Four. I do not think it is possible, and I have never seen it done. I challenge the authors to produce the DT from which they keep producing the ST in their book with the greatest of ease. For that, I would pay 10 times the price of the book, and maybe even an English translation of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Or try a simpler one, assume my first paragraph is the secret message (ST). Develop a code, any code that would translate the first paragraph into a dummy text (DT) such that it too is belivable and makes sense.

Specific criticism of The Rule of Four.

There is nothing in the 15th century text, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (HP) that indicates that it contains anything secret, let alone an important one, on which the entire The Rule of Four is based on. There is no reason why Tom’s father (and his two friends, playing vital roles many years later in the book) should have spent so much of his time, neglecting his marriage, and ruining his son’s life. In the book there is constant reference to all the progress he, and his friend Richard Curry, had made prior to the events in The Rule of Four. Actually, he made no progress, except for luckily finding a piece of paper in an Italian library indicating the possible author of HP, which in my opinion is not an important point. The putative author is Francesco Colonna (turns out to be the correct one). If this finding is not fortuitous, look at the next: His (Tom’s father’s) friend, Richard then “finds” a diary by the 14th century “portmaster”, who becomes interested in Colonna’s goings on, had Colonna’s home invaded by a thief who knows what to look for, and copies the vital map. Amazing! Of course Colonna has the thief killed, but not the portmaster (that should have been so easy to do that it strains credulity that that didn’t happen), who continues to spy of Colonna, overhears vital discussions (Colonna, who takes more precautions than can be imagined everywhere else, somehow doesn’t notice this), and writes it down in his diary. Why? Of course, without the note and the diary there would not be a book, but I could think of many more credible backgrounds.

OK. The poor (and by now rich) authors need something to invent or else there is no book. So let’s go on. Paul, the other protagonist (the other two roommates really don’t matter in the book except for padding), has as a senior thesis nothing less than the complete “solving” of HP, something his thesis adviser, and presumably no one else had been able to do. This strains the remaining credibility. And the deadline is so important that he can only satisfy it by completing his thesis by solving the riddle of the book, something that isn’t even obvious is a riddle. I guess anything less would mean he flunks out.

Of course, the boys solve the riddle. HP, it turns out contains many of the hardest riddles 14th century experts, mathematicians, logicians, philosophers, doctors, linguists, artists (did I leave anything out?) could devise. In Italian, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and so on. Needless to say, our intrepid undergrads can speak fluent Italian (can even read the text which modern-day experts have a hard time doing), are familiar with the myriad quaint references required to solve the riddles, needed to decode the dummy text into the secret text, and of course, not only know the texts but know how to apply them for the solution. Well, to me, it is reminiscent of how Sherlock Holmes “solves” his murders—he couldn’t. Just read the stories carefully and see how many he could solve.

The “solutions” look so easy. So let’s see how these work: suppose that I pose a riddle that is needed for the cipher: “It is fated by its creator”.
Suppose 500 years from now someone needs this for a cipher. It is by no means obvious that the reference is to Beethoven’s 5th symphony? And it is not at all obvious that Paul Hoffman is Hungarian, therefore the 5th should actually be “ötödik”, which means the same in Hungarian. I doubt that anyone 500 hence except the future authors of another The Rule of Four could solve it. And this is not even a good riddle because most people know Beethoven and the Fate reference. I could dig out a work only 10 mavens today have read and use it for setting the riddle. 500 years from now the person trying to solve it would have to know which arcane work I used, and how to use that book to solve the riddle. Once the author gives the solution, it sounds inevitable, even obvious. Backwards. But try going forward. It is hopeless. To repeat, writing a book in which the protagonists run across the word “ötödik” and try to solve what it means of course could have several charming chapters, after which they finally had a brainstorm realizing that Paul Hoffman was Hungarian, he was a classical music lover, he probably liked Beethoven and the 5th symphony could have been his favorite. The reader would believe that the protagonists were so smart. Would that they were!

Here is another, more typical example: Suppose the riddle is “the greatest music”. So the writer-geniuses 500 years hence will read about composers. They try Beethoven’s 9th symphony. By trying I mean do all kinds of ciphers, 9th, Beethoven, and so on. While it doesn’t work, it allows the authors to educate the future readers on Beethoven, symphony, and so on, thereby prompting the reviewers to unheard-of accolades about their erudition. The writer-geniuses next move on to Bach. The same erudition, but no dice. Not even Pachelbel!!! So somebody has the bright idea that the reference is not about music but art. (Why not furniture polishing?). That allows the writers to wax about Leonardo, Picasso, and so on. No luck. Next Philosophy. They now think it may be Pythagoras because of his music of the spheres (few people actually know what he meant by this) but the Greek sage isn’t the answer You cannot imagine the amount of work required to find out that no combination of Pythagoras, etc. “doesn’t work” so they can rule (no pun) him out. On to literature, allowing them to educate the unwashed about Homer, Dante. Then to the Romantics. By then they are so exhausted that they are figuratively dead, ready for a funeral. One of the budding authors says, “I want to be cremated”. Be put in an urn. AN URN, AN URN, scream both of them Of course!!!!!! Keats, Keats,

KeatsKeats,keatskeatskeats keatskeatskeats …

So they read the poem to each other so we (who didn’t have English Lit) would know what it’s about. Of course, of course, it is unheard music that is the greatest. Eureka! (This is a good spot to write a bit about Keats’s Romanticism). So they try everything until they figure out that the cipher is urn and of course it is “urn” in Greek. Easy, ain’t it?

Call me for a riddle of this kind and see if you can solve. But be prepared to speak Aramaic, know Mathematics and the Continuum Hypothesis, Ukiyo-e, and be familiar with ancient Urdu and Hungarian texts. Among others.

Well, of course if I am so smart… May I close with a joke about the proverbial little old lady who won a million dollars on the daily double. A reporter asked how she arrived at the winning combination. “In my dream the Virgin Mary appeared and showed me six lambs and seven geese”. I realized that six times seven is forty-one, so I bet on horses 4 and 1 and won. “But madam, six times seven is forty-two” cried the reporter. “If you are so smart, how come I won the million dollars”.

Quite.