An engineer has used artificial intelligence to crack a Napoleonic-era military code that has remained unsolved for more than two centuries.
Artificial intelligence has succeeded in decoding a message written on the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte, for the first time in more than 200 years, Euronews reported.
The document was not a letter written directly by Napoleon; It came from the headquarters of Eugène de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, and was a coded brief on the troops sent to Marmont on Napoleon's orders.
Carter Church, an engineer at cybersecurity company SentinelOne, reported on social media that OpenAI's Astra GPT-6 model had succeeded in decrypting a message dating back to 1809 that was sent to French General Auguste de Marmont.
Church explained that the artificial intelligence model converted the image content into text for decoding within approximately six hours.
“Astra divided the tablet - which measured 1,202 in 1836 - into rows, read the symbols, determined which of the 175 hand-drawn marks represented the same symbol written twice, and only then began to decipher the code,” Church wrote in a blog post.
Many researchers have tried over the decades to reconstruct the document's content, but none will publish a complete solution to the code.
Astra handled the work from beginning to end, including transcribing the image content, analyzing the homophonic substitution cipher, writing the necessary software, and matching the information to historical records. The text revealed the locations of the Bavarian, Polish and French forces.
In 1809, Europe was steadily approaching war; Austria was preparing to confront France, while a large part of the French forces remained busy fighting inside Spain. Marmont, the commander of the French forces in Dalmatia, was in danger of being isolated if Austria launched an attack.
On March 16, Napoleon issued an order to Eugène to inform Marmont of the main locations of the French forces and their allies, stressing the need for the message to be “written in a secret code” and conveyed by a trusted officer.
The document stated: “The Russians are marching against Austria, and the strength of the Friuli army today is eighty thousand soldiers.” The document stated: “Add to this the Dalmatian Corps - not counting the reserve forces being organized everywhere in the rear lines - and you realize that Austria will be exposed to an immediate and comprehensive attack from all sides. Therefore, she is racing towards her death. When you receive the order to march, do not let a few military units or mobs intimidate you.”
Based on the decrypted troop numbers, officer ranks, and unit locations, Church re-dated the document to late March 1809, about two weeks before the Austrian forces launched their attack.
On September 18, Church published his complete research log, including the transcribed text, code tables, and scripts that allow others to reproduce and verify the results.
According to Church, Satoshi Tomokio, a Tokyo-based researcher who runs the Cryptiana website, reviewed the solution and marked the entry “Solved.”
Egypt is moving to establish new controls for the appearance of doctors in the media, to ensure “protecting the reputation of the medical profession, combating misleading information, preventing deception of the public, and eliminating negative phenomena spreading in some media outlets.”
The new controls are represented in a draft regulation submitted by the Egyptian Medical Syndicate to the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, aimed at regulating the media appearance of doctors, according to what the Supreme Council for Media announced in a statement. The Supreme Council for Media Regulation is scheduled to study the draft regulation and send its opinion regarding it to the Medical Syndicate, before the union’s general assembly is held on October 9, to discuss approving the regulation.
According to the statement, the project includes a number of controls regulating the appearance of doctors in the media and digital platforms, including the obligation to introduce the doctor himself, his professional capacity, and his general and precise specialty, and not to exploit media appearances to promote personal interests or for another party, or to disclose any relationship that may involve a conflict of interest, as well as not to harm the reputation of the profession, colleagues, or medical institutions, and not to use media appearances to announce the achievement of unconfirmed treatment results, or to make misleading claims to the public.
The proposed regulations also prohibit providing misleading or inaccurate medical information, promoting treatments and results that are not scientifically proven, or claiming to achieve unconfirmed therapeutic capabilities, in addition to prohibiting the promotion of medications, diets, or therapeutic systems that are not officially recognized by the competent authorities.
The regulation emphasizes the protection of the confidentiality of medical information and the privacy of patients. It prohibits publishing or circulating any data, images or medical information related to them except with their express written consent or in cases permitted by law, as well as prohibiting the exploitation of children in any advertising or medical media content, while adhering to legislation related to the protection of children.
The regulation prohibits the use of artificial intelligence techniques or any modern digital means to create, modify, or publish visual, audio, or digital content that includes incorrect or misleading data that may lead to deceiving the public or misleading people with unreal facts.
The former head of the Doctors Syndicate in North Sinai, Dr. Salah Salam, believes that this proposed regulation, if implemented in a strict manner and under close supervision by the Medical Syndicate and the Supreme Media Council, would greatly control the media appearance of doctors, adding to Asharq Al-Awsat that “the reason for this proposed regulation is the state of chaos, randomness, and manipulation of the public practiced by some under the name of nutrition or weight loss experts, or (life coach), or other names that delude the public that they are doctors, when they are not.” They often spread misleading information or exaggerate results of their successes, which requires strict oversight.
He points out that some people claim to be doctors and provide prescriptions or methods of treatment that are completely incorrect, and he continues: “It is necessary to have a mechanism that allows the Supreme Media Council to ensure that whoever appears on screen and speaks about medical matters is qualified to do so and is a member of the Doctors Syndicate. Advertisements that promote medicines that have nothing to do with medicine must also be confronted and stopped, which requires strict follow-up and oversight by the Syndicate and the Council.”
Dr. Sarah Fawzi, a specialist in digital media at Cairo University, confirms that “this regulation should have been approved a long time ago and controls must be put in place to prevent the chaos witnessed by many programs claiming to specialize in medicine and promoting incorrect medicines, drugs, and prescriptions, in addition to the appearance of doctors for propaganda purposes only, as if television or the media give them legitimacy.”
She added to Asharq Al-Awsat: “The controls must include not promoting doctors by displaying their clinic data on the screen, and limiting the conversation to the medical side of the issue in which the doctor is speaking, with the necessity of ensuring the doctor’s eligibility and registration in the Medical Syndicate, and differentiating between the doctor, the pharmacist, and those with other specialties that may intersect with medicine.”
