GPT-6 Astra cracks unsolved WWI German cipher

This breakthrough proves that frontier reasoning models can excel at complex, multi-step cryptanalysis and domain-specific historical research rather than just standard synthetic benchmarks.

• –Flawless procedural execution: Successfully reversing an ADFGVX cipher requires precise coordinate substitution and complex columnar transposition where a single indexing error breaks the entire message.
• –End-to-end verification: Rather than stopping at raw decryption, Astra formulated an explanation for the key discrepancy and verified the military movements against external primary archival records.
• –Practical utility for historical archives: Demonstrates the potential for frontier reasoning models to resolve centuries-old cryptographic, archaeological, and intelligence mysteries without dedicated manual brute-forcing.