Judge Hints at Code in 'Da Vinci' Ruling

[tocqueville]

By JENNIFER QUINN, Associated Press Writer
31 minutes ago

LONDON - The judge who presided at the "Da Vinci Code" copyright infringement trial has put a code of his own into his ruling, and he said Wednesday he would "probably" confirm it to the person who breaks it.

Since Judge Peter Smith delivered his ruling April 7 in favor of Dan Brown, the author of "The Da Vinci Code," lawyers in London and New York began noticing odd italicizations in the 71-page document.

In the weeks afterward, would-be code-breakers got to work on deciphering Smith's code.

"I can't discuss the judgment," Smith said in a brief conversation with The Associated Press, "but I don't see why a judgment should not be a matter of fun."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060426/ap_on_fe_st/britain_da_vinci_code_2

[Richard Steele]

1. WTF? "I don't see why a judgment should not be a matter of fun."

What the hell is this judge smoking???

[rpgamerd00d]

2. HAHAHAHA ! OMFG, that is AWESOME!

:rofl:

[Radical Activist]

3. i love it

freaking hilarious.

[xultar]

4. I love that judge! Phuckin AWESOME!

:yourock: judge!

[Finder]

5. Cute. n/t

[BrotherBuzz]

6. "Drink more Ovaltine".

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. For what it's worth, it's been cracked

and it's actually a boring message to do with an outside interest of the judge.

Reading further, the italicisation of random letters continued. This spelled a jumble: "JAEIEXTOST" and so on. We tried simply moving the letters ·forward and back a little in the alphabet, but this revealed no sensible phrase. Then the judge let on that the key to the code was based on the Fibonnaci sequence - the mathematical progression which is based on adding the two preceding numbers in the series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and so on. The Fibonnaci sequence was an essential part of the plot of The Da Vinci Code.

After much trial and error, we found a formula which fitted. This revealed (disregarding a few slips by the judge) the slightly perplexing script "JACKIEFISHERWHOAREYOUDREADNOUGHT", which is presumably to be rendered: "Jackie Fisher, who are you? Dreadnought". This must be taken as a doubtless riposte by the judge, who lists the study of the early 20th century admiral, Jackie Fisher, as a main interest. When asked who was Jackie Fisher, how many times must he have answered that Admiral Fisher conceived of the great battleship HMS Dreadnought?

Yesterday the judge sent a message: "Brilliant. You got it all ... You can rightly claim that you started it and got there first. I thought it had been missed until you found it."

http://books.guardian.co.uk/danbrown/story/0,,1763534,00.html

I think he must have been very bored by the case.