Coppiale code decryption
meaningless roman letters were blank
The 105-page manuscript, bound in gold and green silk, was densely written with Roman letters, Greek letters, and unfamiliar symbols. In 2011, an international research team revealed that the document was a record of a German secret association.
The success of the Coppiale cipher is not a single frequency table, but a combination of transcription, pattern, language model, and overall verification. It can be admitted as deciphering because the same response worked throughout page 105 rather than one sentence. The
Prologue: Recorded Night
After the night deepens, the data was spread on the desk. The first thing that caught my eye was not the answer, but the imbalance. Some scenes were as clear as photographs and some time zones were empty as a whole. People try to capture one clear scene and explain the whole thing, but I marked the empty section first. Mysteries arise because there are many clues, but they also arise because the distance between clues is too far.
research team first transcribed all symbols so that they could be read by machines and counted the patterns that appeared together. At first, the Roman alphabet was assumed to be a plain text, but it failed. Rather, Roman characters without decorations were meaningless separators, and accent letters and abstract symbols contained German.
I deliberately read the famous hypothesis at the end. First of all, when we encounter the conclusion, it seems that all objects and symbols exist for that conclusion. Therefore, the timetable, place, object, and original text were organized first, and the witness and interpretation were placed in different compartments. The novel-like atmosphere was drawn from the cold texture of the actual record, not from a made-up secret.
Case File: What I Could Believe
20313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566212223242526272829303132333435363738394041424344454647484950515253545556| Number | Confirmed Record | Current Reliability |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Coffiale document is a cryptographic manuscript with about 105 pages and 75,000 characters. | High |
| 2 | Roman letters, Greek letters, and abstract symbols were used together. | High |
| 3 | In 2011, Kevin Knight, Beatta Mejessi, and Kristianne Schaefer announced the decoding. | High |
| 4 | The accented Roman alphabet functioned mainly as a blank, not as a plain text. | Medium |
| 5 | The plain text dealt with the consciousness and political attitude of the 18th century German secret society. | Medium |
The code itself has been decrypted, but the detailed keys of the production process and the exact identities of all historical figures remain open for study.
'Unexplained' is not the same as 'supernatural', 'a huge conspiracy', and 'only this hypothesis is possible'. I didn't count the blanks as evidence.
Scene Reconstruction: Finally, the place of the certain point
was changed to the actual movement, not the stage in your head. We divided the starting point, the last check point, and the location where the item was found and calculated the minimum time required in between. When the dramatic description of later generations was removed, small and specific elements such as sound and lighting, doors and roads, paper and ink, and the spacing of symbols came forward.
The person's mind was not fixed and the action was written first. The same behavior can be caused by fear, planning, error, and fatigue. If it is a code, the same symbol can be a sound, a word, a separator, and a meaningless sign. After writing down all possible roles, he erased the roles that conflict with other records one by one.
Clue 1. The Coppiale document is a cryptographic manuscript with about 105 pages and 75,000 characters.
I split this sentence into three pieces first. It indicated who first checked, how close the confirmation was to the incident, and where the later interpretation was attached. Old events and codes turn into clearer stories than the original while being repeatedly cited. But clarity is not the same thing as accuracy. In my notes, I separated the direct record, the traces left by the object, and the reasoning of later generations into different colors.
This clue was then confronted with the record, "Roma, Greek letters, and abstract symbols were used together." It is not a good hypothesis if one hypothesis explains only the first sentence and avoids the second sentence. In particular, if you fail to pass the question, "Why did the cryptographer use familiar characters as meaningless signs?" the attractive explanation also lowered the score. I've seen clues that make the conclusion uncomfortable longer than clues that make the conclusion cool.
If you look at the clues this way, the case seems a little less dramatic. Instead, there is a boundary between how far it is clear and where it is imagined. That boundary is necessary to correct reasoning when new data are released. The most dangerous moment in the unwritten record is not when you make a false hypothesis, but when you turn the hypothesis into a sentence of fact.
Clue 2. Roman letters, Greek letters, and abstract symbols were used together.
I split this sentence into three pieces first. It indicated who first checked, how close the confirmation was to the incident, and where the later interpretation was attached. Old events and codes turn into clearer stories than the original while being repeatedly cited. But clarity is not the same thing as accuracy. In my notes, I separated the direct record, the traces left by the object, and the reasoning of later generations into different colors.
Then, this clue was matched with the record, "In 2011, Kevin Knight, Beatta Mejessie, and Kristianne Schaefer announced the decoding." It is not a good hypothesis if one hypothesis explains only the first sentence and avoids the second sentence. In particular, if you fail to pass the question, "How much can you narrow down documents that don't know the language only by frequency analysis?" attractive explanation also lowered the score. I've seen clues that make the conclusion uncomfortable longer than clues that make the conclusion cool.
If you look at the clues this way, the case seems a little less dramatic. Instead, there is a boundary between how far it is clear and where it is imagined. That boundary is necessary to correct reasoning when new data are released. The most dangerous moment in the unwritten record is not when you make a false hypothesis, but when you turn the hypothesis into a sentence of fact.
Clue 3. In 2011, Kevin Knight, Beatta Mejessi, and Christiane Schaefer announced the decoding.
I split this sentence into three pieces first. It indicated who first checked, how close the confirmation was to the incident, and where the later interpretation was attached. Old events and codes turn into clearer stories than the original while being repeatedly cited. But clarity is not the same thing as accuracy. In my notes, I separated the direct record, the traces left by the object, and the reasoning of later generations into different colors.
This clue was then confronted with the record, "The Accent Romanza functioned mainly as a blank, not as a plain text." It is not a good hypothesis if one hypothesis explains only the first sentence and avoids the second sentence. In particular, if the question "Does partial decoding maintain the same response in the entire ritual text?" was not passed, the attractive explanation also lowered the score. I've seen clues that make the conclusion uncomfortable longer than clues that make the conclusion cool.
If you look at the clues this way, the case seems a little less dramatic. Instead, there is a boundary between how far it is clear and where it is imagined. That boundary is necessary to correct reasoning when new data are released. The most dangerous moment in the unwritten record is not when you make a false hypothesis, but when you turn the hypothesis into a sentence of fact.
Clue 4. Accentless Roman characters mainly functioned as blanks, not plain texts.
I split this sentence into three pieces first. It indicated who first checked, how close the confirmation was to the incident, and where the later interpretation was attached. Old events and codes turn into clearer stories than the original while being repeatedly cited. But clarity is not the same thing as accuracy. In my notes, I separated the direct record, the traces left by the object, and the reasoning of later generations into different colors.
This clue was then confronted with the record, "The plain text dealt with the consciousness and political attitude of the 18th century German secret society." It is not a good hypothesis if one hypothesis explains only the first sentence and avoids the second sentence. In particular, if you fail to pass the question, "Why did the cryptographer use familiar characters as meaningless signs?" the attractive explanation also lowered the score. I've seen clues that make the conclusion uncomfortable longer than clues that make the conclusion cool.
If you look at the clues this way, the case seems a little less dramatic. Instead, there is a boundary between how far it is clear and where it is imagined. That boundary is necessary to correct reasoning when new data are released. The most dangerous moment in the unwritten record is not when you make a false hypothesis, but when you turn the hypothesis into a sentence of fact.
Clue 5. The plain text deals with the rituals and political attitudes of German secret associations in the 18th century.
I split this sentence into three pieces first. It indicated who first checked, how close the confirmation was to the incident, and where the later interpretation was attached. Old events and codes turn into clearer stories than the original while being repeatedly cited. But clarity is not the same thing as accuracy. In my notes, I separated the direct record, the traces left by the object, and the reasoning of later generations into different colors.
This clue was then confronted with the record, "The Copiale document is about 105 pages long, 75,000 characters in cryptographic manuscripts." It is not a good hypothesis if one hypothesis explains only the first sentence and avoids the second sentence. In particular, if you fail to pass the question, "How much can you narrow down documents that don't know the language only by frequency analysis?" attractive explanation also lowered the score. I've seen clues that make the conclusion uncomfortable longer than clues that make the conclusion cool.
If you look at the clues this way, the case seems a little less dramatic. Instead, there is a boundary between how far it is clear and where it is imagined. That boundary is necessary to correct reasoning when new data are released. The most dangerous moment in the unwritten record is not when you make a false hypothesis, but when you turn the hypothesis into a sentence of fact.
Put three hypotheses on the same scale The
hypothesis was not evaluated as a cool sentence. The number of clues to be explained, the number of newly requested assumptions, and the degree to which they endure the opposite evidence were written, respectively. Even if one clue is fully explained, it is not a good hypothesis if the other records have to be discarded.
Hypothesis A. Reverses the assumption that familiar roman characters should be read first.
This explanation has the advantage of accepting "the Copiale document is about 105 pages long and 75,000 characters of cryptographic manuscript" as a relatively small assumption. I assumed that this hypothesis was correct and walked time and space all over again. Each time people, objects, and symbols moved to the next location, they wrote down the actions and times they needed. There must have been a hidden assumption at the point where the sentence was cut off.
The biggest weakness is that it does not fully explain, "In 2011, Kevin Knight, Beatta Mejesse, and Kristianne Schaefer published the decoding." If you keep adding accomplices, coincidences, and lost things to keep the hypothesis alive, you can explain anything. However, such an explanation does not predict new clues. I only scored when two independent records pointed in the same direction, and I scored every time I called in a new exception.
117100118So, whether or not to adopt this hypothesis as a conclusion was judged not by atmosphere but by cost. The number of clues to be explained, the number of newly requested households, and the degree to which they endure evidence against them are listed in the same table. Novel scenes were used to show the texture of facts, but not as evidence to fill in the blanks.
119101120Hypothesis B. Find word boundaries using not only symbol frequency but also the air relationship between symbols.
121102122This explanation has the advantage of accepting "Roma, Greek letters, and abstract symbols were used together" as a relatively small assumption. I assumed that this hypothesis was correct and walked time and space all over again. Each time people, objects, and symbols moved to the next location, they wrote down the actions and times they needed. There must have been a hidden assumption at the point where the sentence was cut off.
123103124The biggest weakness is that it does not fully explain "the accented Roman alphabet functioned mainly as a blank, not as a plain text." If you keep adding accomplices, coincidences, and lost things to keep the hypothesis alive, you can explain anything. However, such an explanation does not predict new clues. I only scored when two independent records pointed in the same direction, and I scored every time I called in a new exception.
125104126So, whether or not to adopt this hypothesis as a conclusion was judged not by atmosphere but by cost. The number of clues to be explained, the number of newly requested households, and the degree to which they endure evidence against them are listed in the same table. Novel scenes were used to show the texture of facts, but not as evidence to fill in the blanks.
127105128Hypothesis C. The character frequency and grammar of candidate German are repeatedly verified in the entire document.
129106130This explanation has the advantage of accepting as a relatively small assumption that "in 2011, Kevin Knight, Beatta Mejessie, and Kristianne Schaefer published the decoding." I assumed that this hypothesis was correct and walked time and space all over again. Each time people, objects, and symbols moved to the next location, they wrote down the actions and times they needed. There must have been a hidden assumption at the point where the sentence was cut off.
131107132The biggest weakness is that it does not fully explain "the plain text dealt with the consciousness and political attitude of the 18th century German secret society." If you keep adding accomplices, coincidences, and lost things to keep the hypothesis alive, you can explain anything. However, such an explanation does not predict new clues. I only scored when two independent records pointed in the same direction, and I scored every time I called in a new exception.
133108134So, whether or not to adopt this hypothesis as a conclusion was judged not by atmosphere but by cost. The number of clues to be explained, the number of newly requested households, and the degree to which they endure evidence against them are listed in the same table. Novel scenes were used to show the texture of facts, but not as evidence to fill in the blanks.
Conclusions I abandoned
137111138When I started the investigation, I was also drawn to the most famous explanation. It organized the case into one sentence and gave intention to everything. However, in contrast to the original record, each blank required a new coincidence. I erased the conclusion then and started again. Good reasoning is not about adding anything, but about removing unnecessary assumptions.
139112140The key I recreated was to remove the prejudice that 'familiarity would be important'. When the Roman alphabet was replaced with a blank candidate, the symbol sequence began to form the length of the German word. Deciphering was the order of abandoning the wrong assumptions rather than the natural intuition.
141113142In particular, the details repeated on later articles and the Internet were separated from the source. Just because the same sentence appears in multiple places does not mean that there are multiple independent sources. We first checked the possibility that one error was duplicated. After this process, the case became less colorful, but the weight of the remaining clues increased.
Anti-evidence: Sentence to destroy my reasoning
145116146The investigation ends quickly if I gather data that upholds my conclusion. So I put the three most uncomfortable questions next to the conclusion.
147117148- Why did the cryptographer use familiar characters as meaningless signs? 150119151
- How narrow can documents that do not know the language be by analyzing frequency? 152120153
- Partial decoding maintains the same response in the entire ritual text?
These questions are not decorative. It is a switch that will change its conclusion when new data comes in. The ranking of the hypotheses changes immediately when directly linked information, such as the sighting source, preserved physical evidence, comparative samples from the same author, and independent dating. On the contrary, when the word "likely" increased, the ranking did not change.
Final Reasoning: I Reached
159125160The success of the Coppiale cipher is not a single frequency table, but a combination of transcription, pattern, language model, and overall verification. It can be admitted as deciphering because the same response worked throughout page 105 rather than one sentence. The
This conclusion is not a complete final judgment. The direction calls for the fewest assumptions in the currently disclosed records and explains the most clues at the same time. It is also clear that what comes out changes the conclusion. Reliable original records, verifiable legal science data, and independent evidence directly linking people and objects are needed.
163127164I do not write that the case is closed. Instead, write down how far you can close it. That boundary is the result of this investigation. The fun of mystery is not that anything is possible. It's about finding out what you can throw away among the possible explanations.
Additional Survey Record 1. Redraw the timetable
167130168Re-expanding the data on the desk, this time covering the conclusion. "The Copiale document is about 105 pages long and 75,000 characters long."The place and the time were lined up, leaving only one behind. Unconfirmed sections were not filled by imagination but marked with blank squares. The larger the square, the lower the reliability of the hypothesis to pass through the section.
169131170On top of it, the explanation was posted, "It reverses the assumption that you should read the familiar Roman alphabet first." At first, everything seemed right, but when I substituted the question, "Why did the cryptographer use familiar characters as meaningless signs," the weak connection was revealed. Hypothesis has to endure the question. If you keep making new coincidences to avoid questions, you will create, not reasoning, from that moment on.
171132172The results obtained in this section are not confirmed criminals or complete plain texts. Instead, it became clear which explanations required fewer assumptions, and what would flip the ranking if found. Even if the case is not completed, the scope of the investigation can be narrowed. This record is intended to leave that very narrow boundary.
173133174Further investigation record 2. Disappeared link
175134176Re-expanded the data on the desk and covered the conclusion this time. The place and time were kept in one line, leaving only "Roma, Greek letters, and abstract symbols used together." Unconfirmed sections were not filled by imagination but marked with blank squares. The larger the square, the lower the reliability of the hypothesis to pass through the section. On top of
177135178, the explanation was posted, "Find word boundaries using not only symbol frequency but also the air relationship between symbols." At first, everything seemed right, but when I substituted the question, "How much can you narrow down documents that don't know the language just by frequency analysis?" a weak connection was revealed. Hypothesis has to endure the question. If you keep making new coincidences to avoid questions, you will create, not reasoning, from that moment on.
179136180The results obtained in this section are not confirmed criminals or complete plain texts. Instead, it became clear which explanations required fewer assumptions, and what would flip the ranking if found. Even if the case is not completed, the scope of the investigation can be narrowed. This record is intended to leave that very narrow boundary.
181137182Further investigation record 3. The path of movement of objects
183138184Re-expanded the data on the desk and covered the conclusion this time. "In 2011, Kevin Knight, Beatta Mejessie, and Kristianne Schaeffer announced the decryption," he continued with a line of place and time. Unconfirmed sections were not filled by imagination but marked with blank squares. The larger the square, the lower the reliability of the hypothesis to pass through the section.
185139186On top of it, the explanation was posted, "The frequency and grammar of candidate German characters are repeatedly verified in the entire document." At first, everything seemed right, but when I substituted the question, "Does partial decoding maintain the same response in the entire ritual text?" a weak connection was revealed. Hypothesis has to endure the question. If you keep making new coincidences to avoid questions, you will create, not reasoning, from that moment on.
187140188The results obtained in this section are not confirmed criminals or complete plain texts. Instead, it became clear which explanations required fewer assumptions, and what would flip the ranking if found. Even if the case is not completed, the scope of the investigation can be narrowed. This record is intended to leave that very narrow boundary.
189141190Further Survey Record 4. Opposite Hypothesis Night
191142192I re-opened the material on the desk and covered the conclusion this time. The place and time continued in a line, leaving only "The Accent Roman alphabet was not a plain text, but mainly a blank function." Unconfirmed sections were not filled by imagination but marked with blank squares. The larger the square, the lower the reliability of the hypothesis to pass through the section.
193143194On top of it, the explanation was posted, "It reverses the assumption that you should read the familiar Roman alphabet first." At first, everything seemed right, but when I substituted the question, "Why did the cryptographer use familiar characters as meaningless signs," the weak connection was revealed. Hypothesis has to endure the question. If you keep making new coincidences to avoid questions, you will create, not reasoning, from that moment on.
195144196The results obtained in this section are not confirmed criminals or complete plain texts. Instead, it became clear which explanations required fewer assumptions, and what would flip the ranking if found. Even if the case is not completed, the scope of the investigation can be narrowed. This record is intended to leave that very narrow boundary.
197145198Further Survey Record 5. Distance between record and memory
199146200I re-opened the material on the desk and covered the conclusion this time. "The plain text dealt with the rituals and political attitudes of the 18th century German secret society."The place and the time were lined up, leaving only one behind. Unconfirmed sections were not filled by imagination but marked with blank squares. The larger the square, the lower the reliability of the hypothesis to pass through the section.
201147202, the explanation was posted, "Find word boundaries using not only symbol frequency but also the air relationship between symbols." At first, everything seemed right, but when I substituted the question, "How much can you narrow down documents that don't know the language just by frequency analysis?" a weak connection was revealed. Hypothesis has to endure the question. If you keep making new coincidences to avoid questions, you will create, not reasoning, from that moment on.
203148204The results obtained in this section are not confirmed criminals or complete plain texts. Instead, it became clear which explanations required fewer assumptions, and what would flip the ranking if found. Even if the case is not completed, the scope of the investigation can be narrowed. This record is intended to leave that very narrow boundary.
205149206Additional Survey Record 6. Range of Last Scene
207150208Re-expanding the data on the desk, this time covering the conclusion. "The Copiale document is about 105 pages long and 75,000 characters long."The place and the time were lined up, leaving only one behind. Unconfirmed sections were not filled by imagination but marked with blank squares. The larger the square, the lower the reliability of the hypothesis to pass through the section.
209151210On top of it, the explanation was posted, "The frequency and grammar of candidate German characters are repeatedly verified in the entire document." At first, everything seemed right, but when I substituted the question, "Does partial decoding maintain the same response in the entire ritual text?" a weak connection was revealed. Hypothesis has to endure the question. If you keep making new coincidences to avoid questions, you will create, not reasoning, from that moment on.
211152212The results obtained in this section are not confirmed criminals or complete plain texts. Instead, it became clear which explanations required fewer assumptions, and what would flip the ranking if found. Even if the case is not completed, the scope of the investigation can be narrowed. This record is intended to leave that very narrow boundary.
· USC — Copiale Cipher decipherment
216156217· USC — computer-assisted decipherment notes
218157219※ This article is a commentary in the form of personal survey records based on public records and reliable data. I have distinguished between confirmed facts and my reasoning, and I update my judgment when a new official announcement is made. External material images were edited for some color and composition according to the permitted licensing conditions, and each image source was shown in the caption.