On Sun, 13 May 2001 22:52:34 Ryan Sorensen wrote:
>
>* Jim Windle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [010513]:
>>
>> On Sun, 13 May 2001 21:41:06 Ryan Sorensen wrote:
>> >
>> >Any help is appreciated.
>> >Including pointers to online resources or past >discussions, if they have any
>specifics.
>> >
>> The discussions in the back issues of "Cryptologia", which cite other
>> works, are the only source I am familar (with though there must be
>> others). Unfortunately only the tables of contents of back issues
>> seem to be available online.
>>
>Thanks. The two Cryptologia issues that seem to be relevant are October
>1993 and 1994.
>Oct 1993 : Statistical Techniques for Language Recognition
>Oct 1994 : Statistical Techniques for Language Recognition : An
>Empirical Study using Real and Simulated English
>
>Which one do you think is more valuable?
>Or is it both?
Actually I think you should check out an entirely different article. I would
recommend "The Beale Cipher as a Bamboozlement Part II" in Cryptologia Vol XII, #4
October 1988. The article was one of a number of articles about the Beale ciphers
from the early years of Cryptologia which suggest they are fake. The authors point
was that the strong stylistic correspondence between the writing style of the
"decrypter" the one decrypted message and that person's other writings. Most of the
articles about the Beale cipher refer to this point. The article also references two
books, which are now old but might be useful though not having read them I can't
really say. They are:
Morton, A. 1978 Literary Detection: How to Prove Authorship and Fraud in Literature
and Documents. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Williams, C.B. 1970 Style and Vocabulary: Numerical Studies London: Charles Griffin
and Co.
The other reference which seems interesting, though I imagine hard to find, is:
Nickel, J. 1982 Discovered, the Secret of Beale's Treasure Virginia Magazine of
History and Biography. 90(3)July: 310-324
Ths last is interesting because he went to the trouble of comparing writing samples
against controls of samples by other writers of the same period and geographic area in
order to establish what was distinctive about the sample. The author was at the time
a professor at the University of Kentucky. He seems to have done a pretty good job.
It strikes me that this sort of thing is sound in theory but fairly hard to execute
effectively, as well as subject to some degree of subjectivity.
I also have a hazy recollection of this sort of analysis being used on the "Hitler
diaries" a few years ago.
Anyway I hope that is helpful.
Jim
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