A team of computer scientists from Sweden and the United States were able to crack a 250 year old encoded message by using contemporary statistical translation techniques, as opposed to code breaking techniques used in cryptography.

The original document, known as the Copiale Cipher, was written at the end of the 18th century and later found in the East Berlin Academy after the world war. Following its discovery, the documents were held in a private collection.

The team, led by Kevin Knight of the University of South Carolina, were initially able to extract symbols that were Roman and Greek. Then they managed to crack the code by using automated translation techniques used by Google Translate. Finally, the team were in the position to guess the meaning of the symbols that they initially did not recognise.

“This opens up a window for people who study the history of ideas and the history of secret societies,” Knight told IT Portal. “When you get a new code and look at it, the possibilities are nearly infinite,” he further added.

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