Re: [ciphertool-devel] more ideas for standards

[Alex G. <za...@za...>]

Hi,

>I think we should continue to use the above text, without the
>legalese at the top of the file...
>  
>
OK.  I took off everything before the line 'Frankenstein, or the Modern 
Prometheus', and I removed everything after the line 'lost in darkness 
and distance.'
The new MD5 is: 8306191547cfd7ca2d04a0d7604fc852

The main thing I'm trying to do is provide some standards for comparing 
search and scoring techniques.  The standards I'm proposing aren't even 
necessarily for inclusion and distribution with the end-user ciphertools 
package, but rather for researching better methods.  Also, people from 
outside the project might be interested in comparing their techniques 
and this would make sure everyone is on the same page.

>The word list that I've been using for my personal solving is version 15
>of the UKACD: 
>http://www.ori.org/~kenl/projects/wordlist/UKACD-readme.htm
>I've made some slight modifications, adding a few new words and removing
>a few uncommon others.
>
I've read a bit more about the SCOWL word lists:
http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/scowl-readme
UKACD is apparently included in the SCOWL 'size 80' list and higher.  
Also, according to this site*:**
http://bryson.ltd.uk/wordlist.html
UK Advanced Cryptics Dictionary* has been superseded by the *Edited 
English* word list provided as part of TEA Crossword Helper 
<http://bryson.ltd.uk/tea.html> and Sympathy 
<http://bryson.ltd.uk/sympathy.html>.

However, I think this new list isn't public.

>The nice thing about this word list is that it
>includes plurals and all of the various verb conjugations.
>
These inflected forms are used in the SCOWL word lists as well.

I suggest that we standardize on either a frozen version of your list or 
the SCOWL size 80 list.  Ultimately though, I think it would be best to 
use a standard wordlist from one of the maintained public lists here:
http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/
Again, this would be the list for comparing techniques, not necessarily 
the most opimized for a certain method or ciphertext.

-Alex

>
>  
>