An AI cracked a 373-year-old cipher by noticing the key was hiding in the book itself

An AI cracked a 373-year-old cipher found in Sir Thomas Urquhart's 1653 book Logopandecteision by noticing the key was hidden in the book itself, according to Boing Boing. The book, an introduction to an artificial language Urquhart created, ended with two lines of 32 numbers each that readers had assumed was a cipher and tried to crack ever since.

In 1653, Sir Thomas Urquhart, a Scottish writer and translator, published a book called Logopandecteision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logopandecteision , an introduction to an artificial language that he had created. The end of the book had two lines with 32 numbers on each line. People assumed it was some kind of a cipher and have been trying to crack it ever since. — Read the rest https://boingboing.net/2026/09/14/fountain-pen-cyphral-distich.html The post An AI cracked a 373-year-old cipher by noticing the key was hiding in the book itself https://boingboing.net/2026/09/14/fountain-pen-cyphral-distich.html appeared first on Boing Boing https://boingboing.net .