Translation algorithms used to crack centuries-old secret code

[n2doc]

By Mark Brown, wired.co.uk | Published 2 days ago

Computer scientists from Sweden and the United States have applied modern-day, statistical translation techniques—the sort that are used in Google Translate—to decode a 250-year old secret message.

The original document, nicknamed the Copiale Cipher, was written in the late 18th century and found in the East Berlin Academy after the Cold War. It's since been kept in a private collection, and the 105-page, slightly yellowed tome has withheld its secrets ever since.

But this year, University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering computer scientist Kevin Knight—an expert in translation, not so much in cryptography—and colleagues Beáta Megyesi and Christiane Schaefer of Uppsala University in Sweden, tracked down the document, transcribed a machine-readable version and set to work cracking the centuries-old code.

The book's pages—bound in gold and green brocade paper—contained about 75,000 characters in very neat handwriting. Outside of two words—an owner's mark ("Philipp 1866") and a note in the end of the last page ("Copiales 3")—the rest was encoded.

more

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/10/translation-algorithms-used-to-crack-centuries-old-secret-code.ars

[Ready4Change]

1. Fascinating.

Quick scan of the translated text makes this sound like an old Germanic form of the Free Masons?

[Poll_Blind]

2. Interesting. Just looking over the actual translated text, it appears to deal...

...(at least partly) with Freemasonry, specifically what I presume to be elements of the Scottish Rite. I've just jumped around inside the text but it appears to define the execution of certain rites or settings wherein those rites take place.

Typical secret society stuff: Call questions and response answers, interior decorating tips for fellow initiates, how to carry out rituals. Maybe a poke or two at other secret societies as being totally lame and clueless.

BTW, I've got nothing against the Freemasons. I don't believe in any gods so it's sort of a non-starter. Still, I try to keep tabs in my own way, as a friend pointed out I seem to have an unconscious penchant for dating Job's Daughters.

:rofl:

PB

[Kablooie]

3. Fascinating, interesting, and stupid at the same time.

The text, not the cryptography, that is.