Conference article

The Application of Hierarchical Clustering to Homophonic Ciphers

Anna Lehofer
Department of Philosophy and History of Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest H-1111, Hungary

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Published in: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2018

Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 149:24, p. 133-136

NEALT Proceedings Series 34:24, p. 133-136

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Published: 2018-06-13

ISBN: 978-91-7685-252-1

ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)

Abstract

In this work in progress study I examined whether the method of hierarchical clustering could be used efficiently on Hungarian homophonic ciphers from the early modern age. First I have tested the methodology on artificial homophonic ciphers. The original corpora of these artificial codes were appropriate to ascertain the effectiveness of the method: knowing the plaintext I could control the outcome. In connection with text length I have identified the limits of the applicability of hierarchical clustering. In a second part, the investigation of eight original letters from the early modern age followed. The testing of original manuscripts shows whether the results based on the artificial ciphers are applicable to original historical documents as well.

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References

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