Video: Codex Copiale

Source: youtube, University of California

USC's Professor Kevin Knight is part of an international team that finally cracked the "Copiale Cipher," a strange, 105-page message handwritten in abstract symbols and Latin letters revealing the rituals and political leanings of a 18th-century secret society in Germany.

Knight, a computer scientist at the USC Information Sciences Institute, is now targeting other famous unsolved codes, such as the last section of "Kryptos," an encrypted message carved into a granite sculpture on the grounds of the CIA headquarters.

But the trickiest language puzzle of all remains everyday speech. "Translation remains a tough challenge for artificial intelligence," he says. Learn more about the University of Southern California Learn more about the USC Information Sciences Institute