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Eternity Code: An Impossible Code


Raider5678

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Alright, first thing I'm going to say is that I got this from a book. The book is called Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code. By Eoin Colfer I thought I should get that out of the way before someone says I got this from a book and it goes off topic. Now, inside the book a kid creates a code based off of no language. In other words, a completely new language that no one could decipher without a key of some kind. My question is if this code is entirely possible or if it's impossible to create. As far as I know if someone tried to make one their subconscious might make it too alike to a certain language, but that's just a guess. This is all speculation, and I'm just wondering if people think such a code is possible.

Thanks

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This is similar to the idea of "code talkers" - using people with a really obscure language for secret communications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker

 

You could do this with a completely invented language but it has the problem that it relies on "security through obscurity". And the problem with that is that it is always crackable somehow. Because the two people (at least) who are communicating have to know the language, there is the chance someone else will know it.

 

In the case of a made-up language, for example, there is a danger that one of the users might keep a written dictionary because they can't remember all the new words. If I wanted to write a story where someone countered Artemis Fowl's invention, I would plant a baby spy with them, as babies are really good at learning new languages with relatively little exposure!

 

Actually, maybe using a completely made-up language like this is closer to the idea of a one-time pad than code talking ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity

 

(BTW I have never read any Artemis Fowl books - I'm waaaay too old - but from what I have seen, I wish they had been around when I was young!)

Edited by Strange
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It's pretty easy to create a unique language that nobody speaks. You could have a computer generate strings for you, and make sure those strings aren't related to anything in any other dictionary. You invent some grammatical rules that nobody thought of (probably because they are inconvenient... like you could have to have sign language incorporated into your speech, or hopping).

 

The problem is that no one else is going to use it. Language is a cultural expression of a social group. No social group means no real way the language can be alive and change over time.

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The problem with a consistent language, although perhaps very obscure, is that it's symbology is consistent and a pattern will eventually reveal itself, with scrutiny. A letter or number is assigned a sound or meaning. You have to dissociate this consistent connection between certain values and their equivalent interpretation,.into a language/code someone else can't understand. The associations must, therefore, necessarily be randomly generated with each message, so a key has to be produced just for that message. I think that's how encryption works.

Edited by StringJunky
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The problem with a consistent language, although obscure, is that it's symbology is consistent and a pattern will eventually reveal itself, with scrutiny. A letter or number is assigned a sound or meaning. You have to dissociate this connection between certain values and their equivalent interpretation.into a language someone else can understand. The associations must necessarily be random with each message, so a key has to be produced just for that message. I think that's how encryption works.

The voynich manuscript nobody can decipher. It's a completely new language that nobody can figure out because it has no known base, making it next to impossible to "decode." If somebody made one that they knew how to read, and taught a few key people to read it, then it would be the world's most effective code for sending messages. Now I know that if people are involved it's bound to fail sooner or later. As time goes on somebody will be bribed and create a key or something, but if you can make one, it's entirely possible to make another. A code like this would be extremely useful, but I don't think anyone could make one. Anybody can come up with random letters forming words, and simple grammar, but making a complex grammar system like english would be extremely complicated in my opinion.

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The voynich manuscript nobody can decipher. It's a completely new language that nobody can figure out because it has no known base, making it next to impossible to "decode." If somebody made one that they knew how to read, and taught a few key people to read it, then it would be the world's most effective code for sending messages. Now I know that if people are involved it's bound to fail sooner or later. As time goes on somebody will be bribed and create a key or something, but if you can make one, it's entirely possible to make another. A code like this would be extremely useful, but I don't think anyone could make one. Anybody can come up with random letters forming words, and simple grammar, but making a complex grammar system like english would be extremely complicated in my opinion.

The only practical way, I can see, is to randomly codify with a matching key for interpretation. I think it's called a 'one-time encryption'.

Edited by StringJunky
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The voynich manuscript nobody can decipher. It's a completely new language that nobody can figure out because it has no known base, making it next to impossible to "decode."

 

It might be that there is nothing to decode. It might just be a work of art and/or clever joke.

 

 

Anybody can come up with random letters forming words, and simple grammar, but making a complex grammar system like english would be extremely complicated in my opinion.

 

People do create completely artificial languages, though. There are people (conlangers) who do this as a hobby.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_language

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It might be that there is nothing to decode. It might just be a work of art and/or clever joke.

 

 

People do create completely artificial languages, though. There are people (conlangers) who do this as a hobby.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_language

 

I've dabbled in that a bit. Didn't come out of it with a full language, but I did learn more about linguistics during that period that I did when I was actually trying to learn about linguistics.

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  • 2 years later...

I have been working on an eternity code lately. I currently have 31 symbols and 44 words. But, as some of you guys have already said, an eternity code is theoretically uncrackable only by itself. If a person knows it, they can be forced to make a key.

 

Edited by Plasma_16
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I might buy the book just to see what it's all about.

In principle, as others have stated, any code with regular expressions is crackeable. An infinity code would have to be an evolving code, where the key changes over time, but the instructions to create the key would have to be included in the code itself to be useful. Reminds me of DNA, btw, though it doesn't fulfill these requirements, either.

If the key to the current transmission segment depended on the content of the previous transmission segment, that would certainly constitute an evolving code with a key included in the code. It would also seriously confuse code crackers, because the content of a message is pretty random, and cracking a 4096PGP encoded message is already sufficiently difficult to be considered secure communication. If you went even further and encoded every byte of information seeded with the previous unencoded byte, this would take it to an even higher level. But, in every case, you would still need to exchange the initial key somehow, because knowlege of the first transmission content would unravel the entire code, so no, this wouldn't satisfy an infinity code either. It's the closest my practical imagination can get right now

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  • 2 years later...
On 5/16/2018 at 2:16 PM, Plasma_16 said:

I have been working on an eternity code lately. I currently have 31 symbols and 44 words. But, as some of you guys have already said, an eternity code is theoretically uncrackable only by itself. If a person knows it, they can be forced to make a key.

 

that is so cool!

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