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Secrets (2)

Mysterious 500-year-old Voynich manuscript “has secret message”

A 15th-century manuscript described as “the world’s most mysterious” contains a secret message, according to a new computer analysis.

• Yahoo! News - A 15th-century manuscript described as “the world’s most mysterious” definitely does contain a secret message, according to a new computer analysis.


Article: Code of Mysterious Secret Society Cracked Centuries Later
LiveScience.com - Wed, Oct 26, 2011


Article: US, Swedish researchers crack 250-year-old cipher
Associated Press - Wed, Oct 26, 2011


A 15th-century manuscript described as “the world’s most mysterious” contains a secret message, according to a new computer analysis.

The Voynich Manuscript is written in an unknown language and script - and the 240-page vellum book has defied dozens of attempts to decipher it, even by top World War II codebreakers.

Carbon dating suggests that it was written in the second half of the fifteenth century, but the book first "surfaced" in the seventeenth century. It appears to be a guide to plants, but almost all the illustrations show non-existent species.

The manuscript is highly controversial, with many experts dismissing it as a hoax - but a new analysis of the text appears to have found “patterns” of meaning which would have been impossible to fake in the 15th century.

The new research has also found "keywords", some of which seem to match to the strange, hand-drawn illustrations that surround the text. It could aid new attempts to crack the code.

“The Voynich text has resisted all attempts to decipher it, even by top World War II cryptographers,” says Dr. Marcelo A. Montemurro of Manchester University. “However, the fact that it has been impossible to decode so far cannot be a proof that there is no message inside it.”

Other ciphers previously thought "unbreakable" have recently been cracked by computer technology - such as the Copiale Cipher, an 18th century German manuscript which was "broken" in 2011, revealing the secret rites of an occult society.

“For the past few years I have been studying the statistics of language - using methods from physics and information theory,” says Montemurro. “These methods allow the extraction of keywords (that is words that are closely relevant to the meaning of the text) even if the underlying language is unknown.”

Montemurro’s technique analysed the text at a large scale - looking for “clusters” of words as the text moved from one subject to another, rather than trying to understand the manuscript’s grammar.

“Over long spans of texts, words leave a statistical signature about their use,” says Montemurro. “When the topic shifts to a different one, other words are needed, and so on.”

Montemurro’s analysis found a range of “keywords” in the text - and found that the pattern of their use was similar to known languages. The researchers also found that clusters of keywords seemed to “match” the illustrations.

The knowledge required to put this level of detail into a hoax manuscript means it is less likely that a 15th century hoaxer could have

“It is not not an absolute impossibility that it is a hoax - but most if not all of these features were not known in the 15th century,” says Montemurro. “The hoax hypothesis is that it needs to explain all the levels of structure that are found in the text - and how they could naturally emerge from the hoaxing method.”


“I’m not a cryptographer, but I can see it as a step forward in the sense that now there are candidates among the text’s words to be those more closely connected with the meaning of the text,” says Montemurro. “There is still the question of what sort of method was used to encode the message and hide its message - making a connection between our analysis and a possible decoding mechanism will require more specialized research."

Solving the Voynich Manuscript: Prof. Gordon Rugg

http://youtu.be/YpzLhmH0UYs

Uploaded on 9 May 2010
An edited excerpt from the "Weird or What?" documentary, first aired May 2010 on the Discovery Channel. This excerpt describes an interpretation of the meaning of the Voynich Manuscript by Dr. Gordon Rugg, a professor of knowledge modelling at Keele University, Staffordshire U.K. Professor Rugg demonstrates how the Voynich, a classic problem that has fascinated linguists and encryption excerpts for centuries, could be a hoax. Details from the original producer, see http://dsc.discovery.com/

Voynich Manuscript : Mysterious book that contains many UNDECIPHERED secrets

http://youtu.be/EYOOALvp6-w


Uploaded on 23 Dec 2010
Voynich Manuscript

Named after the Polish-American antiquarian bookseller Wilfrid M. Voynich, who acquired it in 1912, the Voynich Manuscript is a detailed 240-page book written in a language or script that is completely unknown. Its pages are also filled with colorful drawings of strange diagrams, odd events and plants that do not seem to match any known species, adding to the intrigue of the document and the difficulty of deciphering it.

The original author of the manuscript remains unknown, but carbon dating has revealed that its pages were made sometime between 1404 and 1438. It has been called "the world's most mysterious manuscript."

Theories abound about the origin and nature of the manuscript. Some believe it was meant to be a pharmacopoeia, to address topics in medieval or early modern medicine. Many of the pictures of herbs and plants hint that it many have been some kind of textbook for an alchemist. The fact that many diagrams appear to be of astronomical origin, combined with the unidentifiable biological drawings, has even led some fanciful theorists to propose that the book may have an alien origin.

One thing most theorists agree on is that the book is unlikely to be a hoax, given the amount of time, money and detail that would have been required to make it.

Read more…

Facebook 'Likes' can reveal secrets - including politics, IQ and drug use

Your Facebook page could reveal more about you than you realise - including your sexuality, your IQ and even whether you abuse drugs.


By Rob Waugh | Yahoo! News – Mon, Mar 11, 2013

Your Facebook page could reveal more about you than you realise - including your sexuality, your IQ and even whether you abuse drugs.

Simply looking at all of a person's Facebook 'Likes' can reveal everything from a person's race to a person's political views - with up to 95% accuracy.

Distinctive patterns of 'Likes' correspond very strongly to different personality traits, say researchers at the University of Cambridge who studies the patterns of 58,000 volunteers' 'likes'.

Facebook users were warned that this information could be visible even on accounts with high privacy settings - possibly alerting employers to details users might wish to be private.

Users were more likely to have a higher IQ if they liked 'Mozart', 'The Godfather' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.

People who liked 'I Like Being a Mom' and 'Harley Davidson' were more likely to have a lower IQ, the research found.

People in a relationship liked pages including 'Weight Watchers' and 'Scrapbooking' while singletons followed sports stars such as Usain Bolt and Maria Sharapova.

Heavy drinkers tend to like pages such as 'Tattoo Lovers' and 'Getting A Text That Says I Love You'.

The statistical research method proved 88 per cent accurate for determining male sexuality.

It was 95 per cent accurate for distinguishing race and 85 per cent accurate in determining political views.

Christians and Muslims were correctly identified in 82 per cent of cases, and accurate predictions were also achieved for relationship status and substance abuse.

Even personal details such as whether users’ parents separated before that person reached the age of 21 were accurately predicted to 60%.

The researchers were able to work out their conclusions without relying on obvious 'Likes'- for example only five per cent of gay men and women liked a Gay Marriage page.

The researchers said the observation of 'likes' alone was now believed to be as informative as a personality test.

But worryingly they warned all of the information needed for the telling analysis is readily available to the public - even if your profile adopts the highest privacy setting.

Michal Kosinski, Operations Director at Cambridge University's Psychometric Centre, said: "Given the variety of digital traces people leave behind, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for individuals to control.

"I am a great fan and active user of new amazing technologies, including Facebook.

"I appreciate automated book recommendations, or Facebook selecting the most relevant stories for my newsfeed.

However, I can imagine situations in which the same data and technology is used to predict political views or sexual orientation, posing threats to freedom or even life.

"Just the possibility of this happening could deter people from using digital technologies and diminish trust between individuals and institutions - hampering technological and economic progress.

"Users need to be provided with transparency and control over their information."

David Stillwell from Cambridge University added: "I have used Facebook since 2005, and I will continue to do so. But I might be more careful to use the privacy settings that Facebook provides."

The research was carried out at Cambridge’s Psychometrics Centre in collaboration with Microsoft Research Cambridge and published yesterday (Mon) in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

Researchers said their findings could signal the beginning of a revolutionary method of psychological assessment.

Thore Graepel from Microsoft Research said he hoped the research would contribute to the on-going discussions about user privacy.

He said: "Consumers rightly expect strong privacy protection to be built into the products and services they use and this research may well serve as a reminder for consumers to take a careful approach to sharing information online, utilising privacy controls and never sharing content with unfamiliar parties."

Read more…

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