The HistoCrypt 2026 conference, which will take place from 22 to 24 June, is being hosted by the Université de Picardie Jules Verne and will be held at the “Logis du roi” in Amiens, France. This will be followed by a one-day excursion on 25 June to explore the First World War heritage sites in the area.
HistoCrypt addresses all aspects of historical cryptography/cryptanalysis and history of cryptology, including work in closely related disciplines (such as history, history of sciences, computer science, AI, computational linguistics, or image processing) with relevance to historical ciphertexts and codes. “History” is understood in the broadest sense (ancient to contemporary history).
Call for Papers
| Website: | https://histocrypt.org/ |
| Contact: | histocrypt2026@inria.fr |
| Call for Papers document: | CFP-HistoCrypt2026.pdf |
| Submissions: | https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=histocrypt2026 |
Scope and list of topics
HistoCrypt addresses all aspects of historical cryptography/cryptanalysis and history of cryptology. “History” is understood in the broadest sense (ancient to contemporary history). The conference’s subjects include, but are not limited to:
- Use(s) and practice(s) of cryptography in the military, diplomacy, business, and other areas
- Encryption methods and their evolution over time
- Other techniques of information dissimulation (various steganographic techniques: invisible ink, steganographic printing, knot codes, …)
- Cipher machines
- Roots of modern ciphers in historical cryptology
- Automatic methods including AI in the field of historical cryptology
- Linguistic aspects of cryptology
- Cryptanalysis of historical cryptograms
- Cryptanalytic methods and algorithms applied to historical cryptograms
- Unsolved historical cryptograms
- Cryptographers and cryptanalysts over history
- Influence of cryptography on the course of history
- Cryptology within the history of sciences
- Representations of cryptology (literature, movies, education, …)
We particularly encourage early-stage researchers (PhDs and postdocs) to submit their research.
Conference Programme
Monday 22 June 2026 – Campus Citadelle
| 15h-16h | Excursion – Tour of the Citadelle | |
| 16h-16h30 | Registration | Building B - Hall |
| 16h30-17h | Welcome Talks | Building B - Room C001 |
| 17h-18h | Keynote 1 – Chair: Beata Megyesi | Building B - Room C001 |
| Nagwa Metwally – « Cryptographic Writing in Ancient Egypt » | ||
| 18h-19h | Welcome cocktail | Building F - Room F113 |
Tuesday 23 June 2026 – Logis du roi
| 9h15-10h15 | Keynote 2 – Chair: Alicia Fornés | Room Sagittarius |
| Peter Stokes – « Unsolved Problems in HTR » | ||
| 10h15-10h45 | Coffee break | Room Sagittarius |
| 10h45-11h45 | Session 1 « From transcription to decryption: AI in action » – Chair: Eugen Antal | Room Sagittarius |
| Marino Oliveros Blanco, Alicia Fornés, Lei Kang and Beáta Megyesi, « Joint Transcription and Decryption of Images of Ciphered Handwritten Documents: A Comparison with the Traditional Pipeline » | ||
| George Lasry, « Location Matters: Accelerating Historical Cipher Transcription with Detection-Based AI » | ||
| Lei Kang, Giuseppe De Gregorio, Raphaela Heil, Alicia Fornés and Beáta Megyesi, « Learning to Decipher from Pixels — A Case Study of Copiale » | ||
| 11h45-12h | Lightning talks – Chair: Florentijn van Kampen | Room Sagittarius |
| 12h-13h | Lunch | Dining room |
| 13h-14h | Machine exhibition | Attic room |
| 14h-15h | Session 2 « Early modern cryptology: practices » – Chair: Pierre Saux-Escoubet | Room Sagittarius |
| Marco Vito, « The Secret Writing of Michele Zoppello: An Introduction » | ||
| Camille Rocher, « Cryptographic Practices within Jacobite Diplomatic Networks (1715–1745): A Typology of Ciphers and Keys in Wartime » | ||
| Florentijn van Kampen, « The Codebook of Willem Six van Oterleek: Dutch Diplomatic Intelligence from Saint Petersburg between 1806-1810 » | ||
| 15h-15h30 | Coffee break | Room Sagittarius |
| 15h30-16h50 | Session 3 « Early modern cryptology: influences » – Chair: Dermot Turing | Room Sagittarius |
| Benedek Láng, « Combinatorial Wheels and Movable Alphabets: from Ramon Llull to Leon Battista Alberti » | ||
| Lyle Colombo, « What Counts as a Cipher? The Evolving Role of Shakespearean Paratexts in Cryptographic History » | ||
| Andrea McKenzie, « Was Early Modern Shorthand Cipher? Some Examples from Late Stuart England » | ||
| Carola Dalke and Magnus Ekhall, « Early Mechanical Cryptography and Binary Keying or The Possible Impact of the Damm Brothers on Leibniz’s Machina Deciphratoria » | ||
| 19h30 | Dinner | Brasserie Jules |
Wednesday 24 June 2026 – Logis du roi
| 9h15-10h15: | Keynote 3 | Room Sagittarius |
| Agathe Couderc – « ‘The Entente Cipher Bureaus » cooperation during WWI » | ||
| 10h15-10h45 | Coffee break | Room Sagittarius |
| 10h45-12h05 | Session 4 « Processing cryptology » – Chair: Florette Martinez | Room Sagittarius |
| Raphaela Heil, Alicia Fornés, Benedek Láng and Beáta Megyesi : « Establishing a Document Layout Analysis Baseline for Historical Cipher Keys » | ||
| Alejandra Reinares Guerreros, Giuseppe de Gregorio and Alicia Fornés, « Unsupervised Feature Learning via Convolutional Autoencoders for Cross-Manuscript. Comparison in Historical Cryptanalysis » | ||
| Kevin Knight, « Modeling ENIGMA with Integer Linear Programming » | ||
| Richard Shapiro, « A brief guide to the authentication of cryptanalytic claims » | ||
| 12h05-13h | Lunch | Dining room |
| 13h-14h | Poster Session | Attic room |
| 14h-15h | Keynote 4 – Chair: Benedek Lang | Room Sagittarius |
| Daniel Larsen – « Codes, Ciphers and Cultures of Secrecy » | ||
| 15h-15h30 | Coffee break | Room Sagittarius |
| 15h30-16h50 | Session 5 « 20th century cryptology » – Chair: Carola Dahlke | Room Sagittarius |
| Jip Boer, « Only Gentlemen Read Each Other’s Mail: Over 50 Years of Sittler Codebooks in the Dutch Diplomatic Service » | ||
| André Falut, « Encrypted official telegrams of the Vichy government » | ||
| Dermot Turing, « Collaboration and Collation: Breaking German diplomatic ciphers in 1942 » | ||
| Klaus Schmeh, « The Encrypted Notes of Murderer Petras Dominas » | ||
| 17h-17h30 | HistoCrypt Forum | Room Sagittarius |
| 19h30 | Conference dinner | Restaurant Le Quai |
Thursday 25 June 2026 – Excursion around WWI Heritage
| 8h45: | Departure from Amiens |
| 10h: | Visit of Péronne’s memorial |
| 12h: | Lunch (included in the excursion fees) |
| 13h: | Memorial Tour – Lochnagar mine (mine hole), Thiepval Memorial, Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial (including the trench « St John’s Road ») |
| 18h30: | Return to Amiens |
Important Dates
| Call for Papers: | October 21, 2025 |
| Paper Submission Opens: | December 5, 2025 |
| Paper Submission Deadline: | February 6, 2026 |
| Notification of Acceptance: | April 3, 2026 |
| Camera Ready Manuscripts: | May 3, 2026 |
| Main Conference: | June 22-24, 2026 |
Instructions for Authors
Paper submission
All submissions must follow the HistoCrypt style files, which are available for LaTeX (preferred) and MS Word:
- Template format: histocrypt.pdf
- MS Word Template: histocrypt.doc
- LaTeX Template: histocrypt.zip
Papers must be submitted digitally, in PDF, and uploaded through the online submission system. The page limits for submissions are: up to ten pages for regular papers, up to four pages for short papers, excluding bibliographic references. Paper submissions that violate the requirements will be returned to the authors.
Keynote Speakers
Agathe Couderc, “Swiftness, Accuracy, and Secrecy: the Entente Cipher Bureaus’ cooperation during World War I”
During the First World War, signals intelligence (SIGINT) emerged as a significant tool for informed decision-making. It relied on three main fields: interception of messages, direction-finding, and cryptology, the latter being the speciality of the Cypher Bureaus. Such units were to break the codes and ciphers of the enemy and assumed responsibility for the communication security.
Organization
Bylaws of HistoCrypt
The legal bylaws of HistoCrypt are available as a PDF file for viewing or download.
Steering Committee
- Carola Dahlke (chair), Deutsches Museum, Germany
- Benedek Láng (vice chair), Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
- Richard Bean (secretary), University of Queensland, Australia
- Dermot Turing (member), Kellogg College Oxford, UK
- Camille Desenclos (member), Université de Picardie Jules Verne, France
General Chairs for HistoCrypt 2026
- Camille Desenclos (programme co-chair), Université de Picardie Jules Verne (Amiens, France)
- Cécile Pierrot (programme co-chair), Université de Lorraine, CNRS, Inria (Nancy, France)
Contact: histocrypt2026@inria.fr
Proceedings
The Proceedings of the The 9th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2026 are available for download at this link:
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Historical Cryptology (HistoCrypt 2026)
Registration
Tickets are being sold via Sciences Conf:
https://histocrypt2026.sciencesconf.org/registration?lang=en
Tickets for lunches, dinners and/or excursions at HistoCrypt 2026 have now sold out. Registration for attendance only is possible. To register, please contact the conference organisation directly at histocrypt2026@inria.fr
Please note that even if you only want to attend the conference (sole attendance), you still need to register.
Registration fees
| Category | Student (MA, PhD) | Author | Participant |
| Attendance | € 0 | € 0 | € 0 |
| Attendance + 2 lunchs | € 30 | € 60 | € 80 |
| Attendance + 2 lunchs + 1 dinner | € 55 | € 100 | € 130 |
| Attendance + 2 lunchs + 2 dinners | € 80 | € 140 | € 170 |
Plus-one tickets: €50 (1 dinner); €90 (2 dinners)
Travel, Accomodation and Tourism
Travel information
Amiens can be reached by direct train from Paris (Railway station: Paris Nord). Regional trains run approximately every hour and the journey takes 1 hour 15 minutes. One-way tickets cost €25.90 and can be booked in advance, including online (https://www.sncf-connect.com/). Please note that there are two railway stations: Amiens and TGV Haute-Picardie. We do not recommend the latter as it is located one hour from Amiens and a bus is required from there.