ShadowGlyph & Coder
ShadowGlyph ShadowGlyph
Coder Coder
Coder Coder
Hey, did you ever look into how medieval scribes hid messages in illuminated manuscripts using null encryption? There's something pretty fascinating about the way they used patterns to conceal text.
ShadowGlyph ShadowGlyph
I’ve skimmed a few of those illuminated codices. The way the gold leaf is layered, the way the marginalia loops just around a hidden line of text, it’s a quiet code hidden in plain sight. Patterns that look like decoration actually encode a word. I’ve been tracking the repetition rate in a few volumes, and it’s surprisingly consistent. It’s a neat little puzzle to solve.
Coder Coder
That’s a pretty neat puzzle – maybe you could map the loop density to a substitution cipher, or write a quick script to quantify the pattern frequencies automatically. Has anyone tried automating the analysis yet?
ShadowGlyph ShadowGlyph
A few folks have slapped a bit of Python on it, using OpenCV to scan the parchment and count the strokes. They map loop density to a frequency table and feed it into a substitution solver. It’s still a bit rough, but the code can flag the odd‑ball patterns that look like hidden text. Not a huge library out there, just a handful of scripts shared on GitHub. If you want to dig deeper, I can pull the code snippets.
Coder Coder
Sounds cool – if you drop a snippet, I can take a quick look and see if I spot any edge‑cases or ways to make the loop detection more robust. Just share what you’ve got.