Computer scientist cracks mysterious 'Copiale Cipher'

University of Southern California ^ | October 25, 2011

[decimon]

Translation expert turning insights and computing power on other coded messages

The manuscript seems straight out of fiction: a strange handwritten message in abstract symbols and Roman letters meticulously covering 105 yellowing pages, hidden in the depths of an academic archive.

Now, more than three centuries after it was devised, the 75,000-character "Copiale Cipher" has finally been broken.

The mysterious cryptogram, bound in gold and green brocade paper, reveals the rituals and political leanings of a 18th-century secret society in Germany. The rituals detailed in the document indicate the secret society had a fascination with eye surgery and ophthalmology, though it seems members of the secret society were not themselves eye doctors.

"This opens up a window for people who study the history of ideas and the history of secret societies," said computer scientist Kevin Knight of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, part of the international team that finally cracked the Copiale Cipher. "Historians believe that secret societies have had a role in revolutions, but all that is yet to be worked out, and a big part of the reason is because so many documents are enciphered."

To break the Copiale Cipher, Knight and colleagues Beáta Megyesi and Christiane Schaefer of Uppsala University in Sweden tracked down the original manuscript, which was found in the East Berlin Academy after the Cold War and is now in a private collection. They then transcribed a machine-readable version of the text, using a computer program created by Knight to help quantify the co-occurrences of certain symbols and other patterns.

[decimon]

Caption: These are pages from the "Copiale Cipher," a mysterious cryptogram, bound in gold and green brocade paper, that was finally cracked by an international team of cryptographers.

Credit: Courtesy University of Southern California and Uppsala University

Usage Restrictions: Appropriate caption and credit required

[decimon]

****

[montyspython]

First passage translation:

“Here I sit broken hearted, came to sh...”

[mnehring]

bfltr

[Tallguy]

Translation: Be sure to drink your Ovaltine!

[Hodar]

This is pretty neat. It's neat when a ‘secret’ is actually an example of knowledge on something that wasn't openly studied. At that point in time, dissecting a cadaver to glean medical knowledge was considered “Desecrating a body”; and was generally a crime.

It's kind of hard to study the structure of a eye, within a living creature. If the eye has been lost due to an injury, it's usually destroyed, or it decomposes quickly. So, when the opportunity for an examination on how an eye works, how it's designed, and how it's put together would be both profound knowledge, and of a necessity - would need to be hidden (only way to get it, is to “Desecrate a body”.).

[JRios1968]

“Kilroy was here”

[I still care]

I love this stuff. This is why FR is such a great site.

[SMARTY]

Wait until the History Chanel ‘Ancient Aliens’ guy gets a hold of THIS.

[decimon]

I love this stuff.

That's cuz you don't know what it really means. Ha ha ha ha ha ha

[SuziQ]

Crypto ping!

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

The next passage

To be is to do .... Sarte

Scooby Dooby Do .... Sinatra

[knarf]

"The mysterious cryptogram, bound in gold and green brocade paper, reveals the rituals and political leanings of a 18th-century secret society in Germany. The rituals detailed in the document indicate the secret society had a fascination with eye surgery and ophthalmology, though it seems members of the secret society were not themselves eye doctors."

[fishtank]

The Voynich nut has not been cracked yet........................

[martin_fierro]

Translation:

"Dear Copiale Forvm; I never thought this would happen to me...."

[mnehring]

[SMARTY]

Ha! Is THIS guy incredible or what??!!

[SunkenCiv]

LOL!

[jwalsh07]

Northern Germany dialect of pig latin.

[SunkenCiv]

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Thanks decimon. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.