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Friday, April 28, 2006

Another ‘Da Vinci’ Code Cracked

Another ‘Da Vinci’ Code Cracked

LONDON, April 28, 2006
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(CBS/AP) The code has been cracked.

London lawyer Dan Tench and The Times newspaper on Friday both claimed to have solved the riddle of a code embedded in a judge’s ruling in “The Da Vinci Code” copyright lawsuit.

It reads: “Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought.”

The message was created by Peter Smith, the High Court judge who presided over the copyright infringement suit brought by authors of the nonfiction book “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” against the publisher of Dan Brown’s mega-selling thriller.

Smith’s entry in society bible “Who’s Who” lists him as a fan of John “Jackie” Fisher, a 19th-century admiral credited with modernizing the British navy and developing its first modern warship, the Dreadnought.

On April 7, Smith ruled that Brown had not copied from the earlier work for his book, which has sold more than 40 million copies since it was published in 2003.

London’s legal world has been in a whirl since it was revealed earlier this week that Smith had encoded a message within the 71-page judgment. A sequence of italicized letters was sprinkled throughout the text, with the first 10 spelling out “Smithy code” — an apparent clue, and a play on the judge’s name.

The rest of the letters seemed random: jaeiextostgpsacgreamqwfkadpmqzvz.

Italics are placed in strange spots: The first is found in paragraph one of the 360-paragraph document. The letter “S” in the word claimants is italicized, The Early Show reports.

In the next graph, claimant is spelled “claiMant,” and so on.

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View the ruling and take a crack at breaking the code yourself.
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Tench, who brought the code to the world’s attention last week, said the key lay within the pages of Brown’s thriller.

At one point Brown’s cryptographer hero Robert Langdon explains the Fibonacci sequence — a mathematical progression that involves adding a number to the two numbers before, so that 1 is followed by 1, then 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc. That sequence, when repeated and substituted with letters from the alphabet, spells out the cryptic message.

“It’s extremely curious that he would reference an obscure military figure,” Tench said of the message early Friday. “None of us were guessing that.”

Tench said he and two other attorneys in the London media law firm Olswang used the sequence and trial and error to decode the message. He said Smith had confirmed it was correct in an e-mail.

The Times newspaper arrived at the same conclusion. On Friday, it quoted Smith, 53, as saying he had inserted the code “for my own pleasure” and had not expected anyone to notice it.

“The answer has nothing to do with the case,” he said.

Tench said he noticed the code when he spotted the striking italicized script in an online copy of the judgment.

“To encrypt a message in this manner, in a High Court judgment no less? It’s out there,” Tench said. “I think he was getting into the spirit of the thing. It doesn’t take away from the validity of the judgment. He was just having a bit of fun.”

“I should think it’s pretty sophisticated,” Andrew Sinclair, Historian of the Knights Templar, remarked to CBS News correspondent Richard Roth. “Any judge with a sense of humor and a very clever man, which Peter Smith is, is going to do pretty well.”

“The Da Vinci Code” has sold more than 40 million copies — including 12 million hardcover copies in the United States — since its release in March 2003. It came out in paperback in the United States earlier this year and quickly sold more than a million copies.

An initial print run of 5 million has already been raised to 6 million.



Posted by Admin on 04/28 at 12:38 PM
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Sunday, April 23, 2006

Plans for building a cryptex

A visitor to our website wanted to share the CAD plans he designed for building a cryptex.  I don’t have a description of how to use the plans, but I assume they’ll be self-explanatory to those of you interested in tackling this sort of project.  There are three files to download; right-click and choose “Save Target As” to save each file to your hard drive.

Thanks again for sending these!



Posted by Admin on 04/23 at 10:32 PM
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Monday, April 17, 2006

THE DA VINCI CODE WALK - Walking Tours of London

2. THE DA VINCI CODE WALK
(1.5-2 HOURS)


Inspired by the world’s best-selling novel and blockbuster movie, this fully guided walk explores some of the key locations and links of a truly global phenomenon. See the magnificent 12th century Temple Church where Tom Hanks actually filmed one of the book’s most intriguing encounters. Witness the bizarre ‘mistaken locations’ of the novel and decide for yourself whether or not they are deliberate. Hear more about the book’s enthralling scenes in Westminster Abbey and the controversy surrounding attempts to film there. Finally discover how an ancient London Ley Line, like the Rose Line, has some odd connections… If you know what ‘avoid the candlewick’ means, then this is the walk for you!

Daily at 1.00pm
Starts: Trafalgar Square – Red Tour - Stop 9, Blue Tour – Stop 37
Finishes: Trafalgar Square – Red Tour - Stop 9, Blue Tour – Stop 37




Posted by Admin on 04/17 at 09:21 PM
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Da Vinci Code Promo Breaks New Marketing Ground for Google

www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3599586

Da Vinci Code Promo Breaks New Marketing Ground for Google
By Pamela Parker
April 18, 2006

Google has teamed with Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Columbia Pictures to create a puzzle-themed 24-day contest for the studio’s upcoming “Da Vinci Code” film. The program, which lets people opt-in to see contest updates on their personalized Google home pages, exemplifies the publisher’s efforts to take its relationships with marketers beyond paid search ads.

“This is really something new for us and we’re looking to do maybe a handful of these a year,” Dylan Casey, brand and entertainment manager for Google, told ClickZ. “It’s something we’re interested in pursuing to see how we can interact with our users and get some feedback as to how Google works as a platform for these types of initiatives.”

When users opt-in to add the “Da Vinci Code Quest on Google” module to their home pages, each day they see a link to a different puzzle. Once solved, each puzzle introduces a riddle that calls for the player to use Google Search, Google Maps, Google SMS or Google Video. Agency Big Spaceship worked with Google and Sony on the look and feel of the puzzles and microsite elements. The contest is aimed at audiences in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. The film, starring Tom Hanks, debuts in the U.S. on May 19.

Casey said characterizing the partnership as an advertising deal would be a mistake. Implying that no cash changed hands, Casey referred to it as a “highly collaborative project” which sprung from the two companies’ work together on AdWords campaigns for Sony Pictures films.

“We’ve always wanted to work with Google on a project, and this one made a lot of sense,” said Dwight Caines, EVP of worldwide digital marketing at Columbia TriStar Marketing Group. “Google’s brand is about providing information to people, providing answers to people who are in their daily lives trying to solve something. We thought it would be a good organic fit.” The “Da Vinci Code” story, originally told in a novel by Dan Brown, involves a Harvard professor of symbology who races around the world trying to solve various puzzles.

For Google, the deal allows it to showcase its personalized home page service, which works by allowing users to add content modules. It also lets the company involve users in its Search, Maps, SMS and Video products. “We’re really just hoping to show users interesting things that they can do with Google that are utilitarian and also interesting and fun,” Casey said.

Despite denying ambitions to become a portal, Google has been steadily adding offerings that keep users engaged at its site. Most recently, the company introduced a calendar program to go along with its Gmail and Talk offerings.

Still, Google is wary of being too intrusive with its advertising, so an opt-in program like the “Da Vinci Code Quest” is in keeping with its ethos. “The personalized home page is a great platform for this type of program because it allows the user to choose to add the content,” said Casey.

Though Google has been wildly successful with a low-key, largely text-based approach, competitors such as Yahoo!, MSN and AOL have a much wider palette of opportunities to draw from when working with advertisers. The “Da Vinci Code” program represents Google’s openness to more rich, immersive and integrated marketing efforts. But don’t expect Google to begin offering advertisers a menu from which to choose.

“Our approach to this type of project is going to be that it’s highly collaborative and highly custom,” said Casey.

Rather than putting together a dedicated team to deal with branded entertainment initiatives, Google will instead assemble ad-hoc groups to implement similar programs in the future. In this case, the company included software engineer Wei-Hwa Huang, a four-time World Puzzle Champion.

Columbia Pictures will promote the puzzle contest via its main film site and through search marketing on Google. It will also run an ad campaign on sites appealing to puzzle enthusiasts and on general movie-related sites. Additionally, the company expects to benefit from word-of-mouth marketing. The contest has already generated substantial buzz on Google-related blogs.

The first 10,000 people who complete all 24 puzzles will be invited to participate in a final 48-hour challenge. The grand prize winner will receive vacations to New York, Paris, London and Rome. Other prizes include a Bravia LCD television and a VAIO notebook computer.



Posted by Admin on 04/17 at 09:17 PM
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Sunday, April 16, 2006

Opus Dei Asks for ‘Da Vinci’ Disclaimer

Opus Dei Asks for ‘Da Vinci’ Disclaimer
By FRANCES D’EMILIO, Associated Press Writer
Sat Apr 15, 7:13 PM ET



The conservative religious group Opus Dei has asked for a disclaimer on the upcoming film based on the best-selling novel “The Da Vinci Code.”

Opus Dei, portrayed as a murderous, power-hungry sect in the novel by Dan Brown, wrote in an April 6 letter to Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). that a disclaimer would show respect to Jesus and to the Catholic Church.

“Any such decision by Sony would be a gesture of respect toward the figure of Jesus, to the history of the Church and to the religious beliefs of viewers,” Opus Dei wrote in the letter, which was posted on its Italian Web site.

“The Da Vinci Code” contends that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had descendants, and that Opus Dei and the Catholic Church were at the center of a cover up.

A spokesman for Sony Pictures Entertainment declined to say whether the film would bear a disclaimer.

“We have no plans to reveal any details regarding what is or isn’t in the film until the release,” the spokesman, Jim Kennedy, said in a statement. Kennedy’s statement said the film was “a work of fiction, and at its heart, it’s a thriller, not a religious tract.”

The film starring Tom Hanks is slated for release next month.

Opus Dei, which has close ties to the Vatican, has described “The Da Vinci Code” as offering a deformed image of the Catholic Church.

On Friday, the priest who preaches before the pope in Advent and Lent denounced what he called works that slander the church for profit.

“Christ is still sold, but not any more for 30 coins,” the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa said in his Good Friday homily before Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter’s Basilica, referring to Jesus’ betrayal by the Apostle Judas before his crucifixion, “but to publishers and booksellers for billions of coins.”

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Associated Press writer Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.



Posted by Admin on 04/16 at 10:37 PM
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