Translation algorithms used to crack centuries-old code

[jimmy olsen]

Cool, I really hope this can be used to crack some of the more famous historical codes that remain unbroken.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/25/code-cracking-with-algorithms

Translation algorithms used to crack centuries-old code
By Mark Brown
25 October 11

Computer scientists from Sweden and the United States have applied modern-day, statistical translation techniques -- the sort of which 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.

Some of the letters were obviously Roman and others were plainly Greek, while the rest were abstract symbols and doodles.

At first, Knight and his team isolated the Roman and Greek characters, figuring that they might be the real message, and attacked it with a home-made translation project. 80 different languages, and many hours later, and nothing happened. "It took quite a long time and resulted in complete failure," says Knight.

The team realised that the known characters were just there to mislead. So they booted them out and looked at the symbols. They theorised that abstract symbols with similar shapes might represent the same letter, or groups of letters. They tested this with different languages and when German was used, some meaningful words emerged -- "Ceremonies of Initiation", followed by "Secret Section".

A little computation later and a good chunk of the book had been decoded and transcribed. The document revealed the rituals and political leanings of a German secret society, and one that had a strange obsession with eyeballs, plucking eyebrows, eye surgery and ophthalmology. You can read the entire, weird, manifesto in English here.   http://stp.lingfil.uu.se/~bea/copiale/copiale-translation.txt

Buoyant from his success, Knight is now planning on using his techniques and programs to tackle other codes including ones from the Zodiac Killer, a Northern Californian serial murderer from the 60s; "Kryptos," an encrypted message carved into a granite sculpture on the grounds of CIA headquarters; and the Voynich Manuscript, a medieval document that has baffled professional cryptographers for decades.

[The Brain]

Sweden eh? The spirit of Arne Beurling hovers over the water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Beurling

[Malthus]

opened by the conducting *nee* by putting his hat on, the candidate is taken from another room by a younger doorkeeper and lead by hand to the table of the conducting *nee*, he asks him:  first of all if he desires to be *lip*, secondly to subject himself to those regulations of *o* 

The Knights of Nee? 

[Syt]

Hm? Ok.

Wake me again when they translate the Voynich Manuscript.

[The Brain]

Or the bmolsson papers.

[DGuller]

Or the bmolsson papers.

[Jacob]

Okay, that's cool. Thanks for sharing Tim

[Jacob]

Hm? Ok.

Wake me again when they translate the Voynich Manuscript.

The article says that's one of the next things in their sights.

[Eddie Teach]

Or the bmolsson papers.

I don't think that code is accessible without thorough grounding in 4th dimensional physics based calculus.

[Viking]

Hm? Ok.

Wake me again when they translate the Voynich Manuscript.

It's gobbeltygook.

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4252

[HisMajestyBOB]

Hm? Ok.

Wake me again when they translate the Voynich Manuscript.

It's gobbeltygook.

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4252

I'm skeptical - that's a lot of effort to put into a forgery, especially where they make it look like real languages to modern analysis.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Or the bmolsson papers.

I don't think that code is accessible without thorough grounding in 4th dimensional physics based calculus.

The Time Cube is already there.

[Razgovory]

Hm? Ok.

Wake me again when they translate the Voynich Manuscript.

It's gobbeltygook.

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4252

I'm skeptical - that's a lot of effort to put into a forgery, especially where they make it look like real languages to modern analysis.

Viking is gullible.  I've never seen any evidence it was owned by John Dee.  It would also seem odd that some mysterious people would incorporate language laws that weren't understood for several century later into a hoax.  A much cruder hoax would be sufficient for the purposes elaborated by the article and wouldn't take as long.

[garbon]

Sweden eh? The spirit of Arne Beurling hovers over the water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Beurling

I think the project lead is American.

[The Brain]

Sweden eh? The spirit of Arne Beurling hovers over the water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Beurling

I think the project lead is American.

I intentionally avoided the word Swedish.