I’m looking forward to HistoCrypt 2019 (June 23-26 in Mons, Belgium). Among the speakers are many readers of this blog.

German comedian Jan Böhmermann announced that he would present something “special” in his TV show. A steganographic message indicated that there was a relationship to the Ibiza affair. The truth proved much less spectacular.

A Munich auction house is going to sell an SG-41 (Hitler mill) at auction. Blog reader Markus Sperl has been on site and has provided me a few pictures of the machine.

A recently published paper introducing an alleged solution of the Voynich manuscript has received many critical comments. The negative feedback has caused the university the paper author works for to retract a press release .

Singer and rapper Ghostemane has published a crypto challenge in a US music magazine. Can a reader solve it?

Here’s an encrypted postcard from the early 20th century, which was sent to a young woman in Landreville, France. Can a reader decipher it?

In a well-known codebreaking book from the 1930s, a Playfair-encrypted message with a (probably fictive) background story is provided. Can a reader break this cipher?

A Reddit user has found two encrypted notes and a few geographic coordinates in an old travel book. Can a reader find out what these messages mean?

Anamorphics are puzzles based on a kind of secret writing. Here are a few examples, some of which are over 100 years old.

Blog reader Magnus Ekhall has taken a trip to the Rök runestone, a famous cryptologic sight in Sweden. Here are his report and a few photographs he took.