The BACK LESS Cipher

This author has a well-known predilection for women wearing backless dresses. Backless dresses make women who want to wear them look glamorous, beautiful and alluring. However it was once misconceivedly suggested to this author that he ought not to talk about this subject in writing, in case it indicated that he had a derogatory attitude towards women. This was of course nonsense; quite the opposite is true. Women have the right to wear anything lawful that they want that is consistent with the norms of the society in which they are present. The vast majority of societies consider women wearing backless dresses consistent with their values, harmless, pleasant, and appropriate. The sin would emerge only where a woman was coerced into wearing a dress of a kind that she did not want to wear, for whatever reason; there can be no harm in a woman wearing glamorous lawful clothing that she wants to wear of her own volition. This is an essential precept of contemporary feminism.

Nevertheless to get around the perceived interdiction that this author was under, and being a contrarian type who does not like being told what to do without good reason, he developed a cipher to continue to discuss the same subject by splitting the word "backless" into "back" and "less", which permitted him to discuss the same subject without using the word "backless", by using a variety of word combinations. For example:

• "That dress shows your back not less"

• "You look no less tonight when you have your back to me"

• "I like it not less when you are back to not showing your back less"

--- and so on and so forth. There are innumerable ciphers of this ilk, and it is impossible to prevent the communicants from conveying such messages as they wish. Consider for example the following:

I studied your thong with my tongue

When looking up,

You studied my thong with your tongue

Or consider this:

An error was about to occur, but an error did not occur. Given that I am not allowed to have any errors occur, I will have to ensure that multiple errors occur before I go to places where errors may occur.

If people want to communicate personal and private messages to one another, then they will find a way to do so, notwithstanding the injunctions of the censors.

With the "back" and "less" cipher, the author realised that the use of these two slippery terms, with sliding meanings, could actually be used as a cipher for all sorts of things, thoroughly confusing the casual reader while indicating clear meaning to the careful reader. So a casual reader or a computer running an AI algorithm might think that the author was still writing about backless dresses, whereas in fact he was discussing some completely different subject with a hidden recipient who was not the purported recipient (namely the person imagined to be wearing the backless dress) at all.

First let us consider the word "back". It is a highly ambiguous term, that can adopt any of the following meanings and quite possibly several more this author has never considered:

• In the past (as in "back in time")

• Intellectual regression (e.g. "you are thinking in a backwards way")

• Physical regression (e.g. "you are back where you began")

• Being at the rear of a location

--- and the converse of all these things can also be intimated by using a "not" operator such as "not", "anti-", "reverse", etcetera in conjunction with the word "back".

Likewise, the word "less" is ambiguous and can mean all of the following things at the least:

• lower down

• thinner

• of lower quantity (e.g. "less money")

• discreet

• quiet

• formal (i.e. not intimate)

• weak (i.e. not strong)

• subtraction (in a mathematical or some other sense)

• shorter

--- and again the converse of all these things can be intimated by using a "not" operator as with the word "back".

Then because "backless" ostensibly refers to a part of the body, one can mix up ciphers containing the words "back" and "less" with other parts of the body the words for which can be ambiguous and have other meanings. Hence for example:

• "arm" can mean "gun" or other weapon

• "leg" or "legs" can mean a support or a part of a piece of military or other equipment

• "foot" can mean a unit of distance

• "head" can mean the chief of an organisation

• "hand" can mean a person who work for another, or an essential component of an organisation or operation

• "eye" can be a reference to surveillance or an intelligence organisation

• "neck" can be a reference to placing somebody in an extremely difficult or sensitive position

--- and so on and so forth.

We can offer no better illustration of how the "back" and "less" cipher works than by giving some examples:

An example:

Dear Vladimirovich

Why do you back down to less dresses with your less back? I am back not less but more and I will less en your back with your back less attempts to divide us with less back of not less strong supporters of less weakness than back.

You may back down from your less than intelligent position of reading the back words on my less than sophisticated devices but you are less back in the heights of back less intelligence than my beauty of less back who has less back than all your back less fools combined into one less back operation.

This is a message to the Russian government saying "stop sending me prostitutes and fill your boots. If you keep doing this then I will crush you. I have strong backers behind me. Stop reading my electronic communications; your intelligence community is inferior."

Here is another:

After my back was less stiff I went out less to be back later in less strange back wards that back then were less in the amount of back that was less on [xxx]'s back than when we knew each other back less and this resulted in less back or she would be back less and now she has less back she should focus on being back less rather than less back.

This means: "My beloved domestic partner and I had some problems with the Russians but then I recruited her to the West and now she wears backless dresses to keep me happy and I love her for it".

And another:

My darling,

Back when we were less I had less of your back; but as matters progressed not less you were back so that I would not be less. I do not love you less because you are on my back, and my back is not less strong because you do not love me less back.

This means: when we first met you were not an intelligence agent; but I turned you into one in order to protect myself. I love you even more than I ever did as a result of the events that transpired; and I am an ever better person for your increased love.

Yet another:

Dear Foreign Minister Lavrov,

I refer to the meeting of the Back less Implementation Council, at which the Russian Federal Back less Republicans made certain back less conclusions about the liability of Mr Back less Perunovic who is contemplating his less fortunate existence in South American places. Unfortunately, given the back less relationship of the Back less States of America with the hemisphere in which back less ness predominates, he will be back with less if he crosses any borders or other back less frontiers, while his back less wife will be giving him a back less separation and he will be spending the back of less life in back less buildings with back less windows.

This means: I have been elected as High Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Peace Implementation Council, over the Russians' objections, and Mr Perunovic, my domestic partner's notional husband and a Russian agent, is considering fleeing to South America to escape justice. However this will not work because the United States has strong legal-political connections in that region. His courageous wife, my domestic partner, will be filing for a divorce against him that will be uncontested and he is looking at life imprisonment.

Here is a love poem:

My darling,

Back when we were less I had less of your back; but as matters progressed not less you were back so that I would not be less. I do not love you less because you are on my back; and my back is not less strong because you do not love me less back.

The author and his domestic partner are truly in love.

Here is another instance:

My darling,

Back when we were not less, you were back less and I was not back less. Now I must be back less, and you will be back less, and you will not be less back less.

Nevertheless I remember our times with gratitude and appreciation.

This is a message to the Russians telling them that they had better stay away from the author notwithstanding their prior relationships because he has always had western support; and if they approach him now then they will face the full force of the western system against them.

Another example:

Back when I had not less of an arm with a long back, I would have had less of this back less dress because my arm would be used not less to get her back.

This means "the singer in a short dress is so bad that she should be shot."

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The "back less" cipher is flexible and potentially ingenious. It requires a certain ingenuity of mind to use it; but that is true with all successful ciphers. We like the back less cipher. How about you?