AI Unlocks Napoleon’s Coded Letter After 217 Years

An engineer at a cybersecurity company has used artificial intelligence to decipher a mysterious letter written by French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte 217 years ago.

The breakthrough involved applying AI to a message whose coded contents had remained a puzzle for more than two centuries.

The brief account of the achievement did not identify the engineer or the cybersecurity company. It also provided no details about the AI system used or the process behind the decoding.

The letter’s contents were not disclosed in the summary, leaving its subject, intended recipient and historical significance unclear.

The reported success illustrates how modern technology can be brought to bear on historical mysteries, though further details would be needed to assess the decipherment and what it reveals.