Now you can use the Online Copiale Cipher Encoder and the related cipher wheel to send and receive messages. It doesn’t translate your message into German and it doesn’t appear to use any of the Copiale glyphs with full word values, so it’s really just a substitution code with a partial Copiale cipher, but there it is. I don’t know if this means the Copiale cipher has jumped the shark yet, but it has definitely gained a critical mass of exposure now. At the very least, this could be a way to engage young learners around the Copiale cipher, codes, secret societies, security culture, and much more.

“The Copiale cipher is an encrypted manuscript consisting of handwritten characters. The manuscript included abstract symbols, as well as letters from Greek and most of the Roman alphabet. It is thought to date from between 1760 and 1780. In 2011, an international team announced that they had deciphered the manuscript. They found the original manuscript to be a German masonic text encrypted by a complex substitution code.

Use the Online Copiale Cipher Encoder to encrypt a message from any language into Copiale cipher. Then, give the cipher wheel below to your friends so they can decode your message!” [via]

I, for my part, am looking forward to having my own Copiale secret decoder ring appear as a prize in my cereal box. But, if this doesn’t all seem amusing and interesting from my description, just consider that it’s funnier in Copiale …