Eureka! I've Got it!

Computer scientists from Sweden and the United States have applied modern-day techniques to decode a 250-year old secret message! The Copiale Cipher . The original document was written in the late 18th century and discovered in the East German Academy after the Cold War. This 105 page document has kept its secret, all these years..until now!

This year, University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering computer scientist Kevin Knight and collegues Beata Megyesi and Christiae Schaefer of Uppsala University in Sweden tracked down the document and cracked the code. Some of the cryptic letters were Roman, while others were Greek, and the rest were abstract symbols and "doodles".

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The book, bound in gold and green brocade dates back to a time between 1760 and 1789, contained about 75,000 characters of 90 different cipher letters, including the 26 Roman letters, all in very neat handwriting.. "Historians believe that secret societies have had a role in revolutions, but that is yet tobe worked out, and a big part of the reason is because so many documents are enciphered" according to Kevin Knight, a U. of California code-expert. Computations and a good chunk of the translation has been decoded, revealing rituals and political leanings of a German secret society. Knight called upon scholars from Uppsala University in Sweden. This institution is the oldest university in Scandinavia, founded in 1477. It consistently ranks among the best universities in Northern Europe and is considered on of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in Europe.

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After many hours of decoding, the team realized that some characters were inserted to mislead, while others could be grouped forming words. Using different languages, the German language, when used, resulted in partial understandable text..Sorting through the Roman, German and other language symbols, the document finally revealed the rituals and political leanings of a Secret German Society, a society that had a strange obsession with.... eye-balls, plucking eye-brows, eye surgery and ophthalmology!

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The Copiale Cipher case was cracked! This 18th-century manuscipt of 150 precise pages, written in thoughtful coded symbols and letters turned out to be a German Masonic secret society known as the "Occult Order." Decoded, the secret document documented procedures of meetings, and secret lessons for apprentice initiation. One might question the reason for the elaborate effort of secrecy. But it would take a team of Californian Americans and Swedes from Uppsala University to solve the riddle.

If you can read this. you might make the team!