Hamptonese and Hidden
Markov Models
or
When is a Cipher not a Cipher?
Ethan Le and Mark Stamp
Department of Computer Science
San Jose State University
Hamptonese
1
This Talk…
 James
Hampton
 Hamptonese
 Hidden Markov Models (HMMs)
 HMMs and Hamptonese
 Conclusions/Questions
Hamptonese
2
James Hampton
 Served
in Pacific in WWII
 Washington, DC janitor
 Dispensationalism
 Died 1964
 “Throne” discovered after his death
 “Hamptonese” script also found
Hamptonese
3
The Throne of the Third Heaven of the
Nations’ Millennium General Assembly
Hamptonese
4
Hampton’s Throne
Hamptonese
5
Hamptonese
Hamptonese
6
What is Hamptonese?
 Where
do characters come from?
 Is it a cipher?
 Is it gibberish?
 Speaking
in tongues?
 Martian? [1]
 Other?
Hamptonese
7
Hidden Markov Models

Markov process with hidden states [2]
Hamptonese
8
HMMs (cont)



Markov process depends on A and X0
Oi related to Xi by the B matrix
Three solvable problems
1.
2.
3.
Find probability of observed sequence
Find “optimal” state sequence
Train the model to fit observations
(discrete hill climb)
Hamptonese
9
HMM Examples



Speech recognition
iTunes tool
English text, Cave and Neuwirth [3]




27 symbols (letters plus word space)
Assume 2 hidden states
Train model to best fit data
Results?
Hamptonese
10
HMM Example (cont)
B matrix
Hamptonese
11
HMM and Hamptonese
 Transcribed
all 100 pages [4]
 More than 30,000 observations
 More than 40 distinct symbols
 Assume 2 hidden states
 Try HMM to separate symbols
into states (hill climb)
Hamptonese
12
Results
 Hamptonese
not a simple
substitution for English letters
 Probably not a simple substitution
for any other language
Hamptonese
13
Last Words


When is a “cipher” not a cipher?
Maybe we can say
o
o
o
o
Hamptonese is not a good cipher
We can (probably) break a bad cipher
We cannot “break” Hamptonese…
So Hamptonese is probably not a cipher
Hamptonese
14
References
[1] A. G. Hefner, “Smith, Helene”,
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/s/smith_helene.html
[2] M. Stamp, “A revealing introduction to hidden Markov
models”, http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/stamp/Hampton/HMM.pdf
[3] R.L. Cave and L.P. Neuwirth, “Hidden Markov models for
English”, in Hidden Markov Models for Speech, IDACRD, Princeton, NJ, 1980
[4] M. Stamp and E. Le, “Hamptonese”,
http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/stamp/Hampton/hampton.html
Hamptonese
15