Democracy Has Prevailed.

January 22, 2011

One Thought On Potter's Update

Potter's Slag Heap's been doing a great job following the FOP Press Release for sometime now.

Today he had a most interesting update:
Also, just for those of you who are fans of this hoax -- and I know you're out there ... a sharp-eyed reader has pointed out that the faked press release also contains another secret message, in addition to the one we've previously noted.

If you look at the very first letter of each line of the release, it spells out the following message:

"Fuck da pigs in pgh."
The previously noted secret message is found in the logo at the top of the hoaxed press release. Instead of the Latin "Jus Fidus Libertatum" (translation: Law is the safeguard of liberty), the logo in the hoaxed press release reads "Justicia Volutabrum".

"Volutabrum", Potter dutifully tells us, is Latin for "pigsty".

Back to the second secret message. If you look at the hoaxed release, you'll see that what Potter wrote is not the only plaintext hidden in the first letters of each line. The complete plaintext is:
"fuckda pigs inp gh tdj"
(The spaces above align with the paragraph breaks in the hoaxed release.) I do have to wonder why there's a space between the "p" and the "gh" though. Given the amount of time it must've taken to compose the message, surely a little more consistency might have been achieved.

It's my guess is that too much work was put in composing the whole thing for "TDJ" to just fill out the last (and unconnected) paragraph. It's necessary otherwise so it must be a part of the message.

How much you wanna bet the police really want to speak to someone with the initials TDJ? Or three people whose initials are T, D, and J?

Of course, I could be completely wrong. It's just a guess on a frickin' cold Saturday afternoon.

8 comments:

spork_incident said...

I'd still like to know what crime has been committed here.


A Spork in the Drawer

Infinonymous said...

Impersonating a district justice?

Bram Reichbaum said...

That's a great potential pickup, Daveyvoe.

Dayvoe said...

IT'S DAYVOE!!

DAY-VOE

NOT DAVEY-VOE!!

:-)

Ol' Froth said...

Spork, the FOP is a fraternal organization whos symbols and mottos are protected under the law in Pennsylvania, same as the symbols and mottos of other organizations like the Moose, Masons, Eagles, Oddfellows, etc. Use of those symbols, mottos and emblems without permission is a violation of PACC 6704. In the case at hand it would be a violation of 6704(2), imitating such name or title (of a grand lodge) with the intent to deceive. Also, the signature of the FOP Lodge 1 president appeared on the "release" which would be a violation of PACC 4101 Forgery, a felony of the third degree.

Infinonymous said...

Strange that such detailed legal research missed the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

Ol' Froth said...

Infinonymous, the author of the release has every right to publish and distribute information, either anonymously, or under his or her own name. What they do not have the right to do is publish that information under another person's name, nor do they have the right to use what are in essence, trademarked symbols.

You can look up the relevent sections in the Crimes Code yourself.

Pgh_Knight said...

if Infinonymous thinks this is a 1st Amendment issue... he needs to learn about the 1st Amendment. Then get back to us. I won't debate with the uneducated.