Cryptography question

[Insomniator]

So in the classic episode of TZ where aliens come promising to help solve the worlds problems but of course there is a catch, a book is left on earth in the alien language.

How is this at all possible to translate? I assume that a totally unknown language is completely impossible, but I don't really understand how codes could be cracked in real life as in WWII...

How do you even start... what is the point of reference... I don't get it...

 

[Quiksilver]

Your thinking way to hard about this.

 

[FoBoT]

you look for patterns

 

[Mo0o]

It's impossible without any kind of context

 

[sciwizam]

The Code Book by Simon Singh is an excellent book that deals with codes and cryptography and might be a helpful read. I recommend it, at least borrow it from a library.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Mo0o
It's impossible without any kind of context

I don't claim to know anything about cryptography, but I do know that isnt true. lol

A language would be easy to crack compared to a true encryption method.

 

[Mo0o]

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: Mo0o
It's impossible without any kind of context

I don't claim to know anything about cryptography, but I do know that isnt true. lol

A language would be easy to crack compared to a true encryption method.

If you dont know anything about the alien language, how they communicate, the syntax of their language, the way they form sentences or if they form sentences at all, how are you going to crack their language? You can crack cryptography because at teh root of it all, it's still just an encrypted message of a language we know.

We were unable to really understand hieroglyphics until the rosetta stone was discovered

 

[Colt45]

un-doable

unless it has translations of known earth works.

 

[dighn]

I wouldn't say it's impossible theoretically, but practically so. assuming you had virtually unlimited processing power you might be able to discover patterns and assign them meanings in such a way that the whole thing makes sense.

 

[Mo0o]

Originally posted by: dighn
I wouldn't say it's impossible theoretically, but practically so. assuming you had unlimited computational power you might be able to discover patterns and assign them meanings in such a way that the whole thing makes sense.

You can find the patterns but unless theres context, the patterns are meaningless

 

[Auggie]

I like turtles!

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: Mo0o

Originally posted by: dighn
I wouldn't say it's impossible theoretically, but practically so. assuming you had unlimited computational power you might be able to discover patterns and assign them meanings in such a way that the whole thing makes sense.

You can find the patterns but unless theres context, the patterns are meaningless

well, if you can assume that the book is talking about some area of subject, and if you could assign meanings in an almost brute force fashion and work from there, you might be able to find a combination that has real meaning.

of course I'm speaking about hypothetical abilities here. no human/machine we have could do this. it would take something god-like to us. I guess that makes it irrelevant to the original context of the TV episode.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Mo0o

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: Mo0o
It's impossible without any kind of context

I don't claim to know anything about cryptography, but I do know that isnt true. lol

A language would be easy to crack compared to a true encryption method.

If you dont know anything about the alien language, how they communicate, the syntax of their language, the way they form sentences or if they form sentences at all, how are you going to crack their language? You can crack cryptography because at teh root of it all, it's still just an encrypted message of a language we know.

We were unable to really understand hieroglyphics until the rosetta stone was discovered

Yup, this.

Without a frame of reference, we'd have no clue where to even begin, and no clue when we finally got it right.

Originally posted by: dighn
well, if you can assume that the book is talking about some area of subject, and if you could assign meanings in an almost brute force fashion and work from there, you might be able to find a combination that has real meaning.

of course I'm speaking about hypothetical abilities here. no human/machine we have could do this. it would take something god-like to us. I guess that makes it irrelevant to the original context of the TV episode.

But what if their science is so far advanced that they are talking about things we have yet to discover?
They could talk about light in a manner totally different than we do, perhaps it behaves as a "lgidnsst" - a term used to refer to its dual wave-particle nature. We have no term like that though. We'd have no way of knowing if we'd got it right.

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: dighn
well, if you can assume that the book is talking about some area of subject, and if you could assign meanings in an almost brute force fashion and work from there, you might be able to find a combination that has real meaning.

of course I'm speaking about hypothetical abilities here. no human/machine we have could do this. it would take something god-like to us. I guess that makes it irrelevant to the original context of the TV episode.

But what if their science is so far advanced that they are talking about things we have yet to discover?
They could talk about light in a manner totally different than we do, perhaps it behaves as a "lgidnsst" - a term used to refer to its dual wave-particle nature. We have no term like that though. We'd have no way of knowing if we'd got it right.

If the book contains definition of these things in terms of what we understand, then you could theoretically figure them out. If not then that would be a problem since complex and unknown concepts are simply referred to instead of explained, another source of information would be needed. That would be naughty of the aliens though

 

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: Insomniator
So in the classic episode of TZ where aliens come promising to help solve the worlds problems but of course there is a catch, a book is left on earth in the alien language.

How is this at all possible to translate? I assume that a totally unknown language is completely impossible, but I don't really understand how codes could be cracked in real life as in WWII...

How do you even start... what is the point of reference... I don't get it...

you mean the episode "To Serve Man"?

 

[nageov3t]

maybe he was totally wrong and the aliens really WERE there to help

 

[Cogman]

Originally posted by: Mo0o

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: Mo0o
It's impossible without any kind of context

I don't claim to know anything about cryptography, but I do know that isnt true. lol

A language would be easy to crack compared to a true encryption method.

If you dont know anything about the alien language, how they communicate, the syntax of their language, the way they form sentences or if they form sentences at all, how are you going to crack their language? You can crack cryptography because at teh root of it all, it's still just an encrypted message of a language we know.

We were unable to really understand hieroglyphics until the rosetta stone was discovered

This!

There is a good reason we used Navajo Indians in WWII to do our encryption. Find all the patterns you like, you are still making the potentially false assumption that their text uses a similar setup as ours, IE letters/symbols = sounds/ideas For all we know, their writing could be that of brain wave patterns needed to fully understand what the author wanted the text to say.

Even if it was as simple as instructions for making an apple pie, it would still be incredibly difficult to understand because the symbols each represent something that has absolutely no meaning to us.

Heck, even if the book was a dictionary that contained all the words of the aliens, we still wouldn't be able to decipher what any of the symbols mean. You need someone to give you a primer before you can go anywhere in translating.

Don't believe me? Give your crypto friends something written in Hungarian. Tell them to translate it into English without using any sort of Hungarian friend family member, dictionary, online reference site. I doubt anyone could do it, if they could, then all the sudden our translation algorithms just got a heck of a lot smarter.

 

[SKORPI0]

Originally posted by: Iron Woode

Originally posted by: Insomniator
So in the classic episode of TZ where aliens come promising to help solve the worlds problems but of course there is a catch, a book is left on earth in the alien language.

How is this at all possible to translate? I assume that a totally unknown language is completely impossible, but I don't really understand how codes could be cracked in real life as in WWII...

How do you even start... what is the point of reference... I don't get it...

you mean the episode "To Serve Man"?

doooh, look like the book was a cookbook.

Wiki

 

[FoBoT]

yeah, once you have a reference, like you know it is a cook book, then the patterns can be associated and you can figure it all out

 

[Mo0o]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
yeah, once you have a reference, like you know it is a cook book, then the patterns can be associated and you can figure it all out

If I give you a cookbook completely in chinese I bet you wouldnt figure out whats what

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: Mo0o

Originally posted by: FoBoT
yeah, once you have a reference, like you know it is a cook book, then the patterns can be associated and you can figure it all out

If I give you a cookbook completely in chinese I bet you wouldnt figure out whats what

True this, I would probably guess it was a guide to obedience training.

 

[Mo0o]

Originally posted by: ironwing

Originally posted by: Mo0o

Originally posted by: FoBoT
yeah, once you have a reference, like you know it is a cook book, then the patterns can be associated and you can figure it all out

If I give you a cookbook completely in chinese I bet you wouldnt figure out whats what

True this, I would probably guess it was a guide to obedience training.

or maybe a how-to guide to pirating dvds