Kevin Knight a US computer scientist of the University of South Carolina Viterbi School of Engineering, along with an international team have cracked the Copiale Cipher. Knight and his Swedish colleagues Beáta Megyesi and Christiane Schaefer of Uppsala University decoded the secret encrypted 18th century document. The cracking of the 75,000 character cryptogram has revealed the rituals and politics of a German secret society. The document known as the Copiale Cipher, has had its secret meaning shrouded in mystery since discovery at the end of the Cold War, hidden at an East Berlin Academy. The document comprises 105 pages of handwritten messages in abstract symbols and Roman letters. Knight states “I’m happy that linguistic software can help us crack historical ciphers … Now I hope that decipherment techniques can help us build better translation software.”

 

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