下载

Deciphering the hidden meanings found in words,symbols and phrases. No, not in Davinchi Code,but the real life crime fighting taking place at the FBI.NBC's Pete williams has more.
What was in a letter sent from jail by Joseph Smith,while awaiting in jail for the kidnapping and murder of 11-year-old Carly Brusher.Unable to decode the jumble of numbers and symbols,Florida police turned to the FBI's script analysis unit---The Code Breakers. They realised those symbols stood for letters.But the FBI's Daniel Olson says they had one more puzzle to solve.
"What we thought was the frist line is actually the last line,the message started at the bottom,and whirled backwards all the way up to the top." "So the message starts here,and goes right to left,up." "Correct!"
The letter revealed where Smith hid evidence that helped /convict him.
" The defendant's guilty of murder in the first degree has charged."
Not every cipher is so easy to break.Thiltor Kasensky,the unibomer left behind journals protected by a laborate of layers of encoding. THe FBI cracked them discovering that after one of his fatal attacks,Kasensky wrote quote --excellent. humane way to eliminate somebody.He probably never felt a thing. Sometimes Olson says they break a code in a moment of inspiration.
" You are driving in your car,and something flashes in your mind,and ,and you are on the phone with someone / in the office:Here,quick,try this.
Spies,Gangs,the Mafia even serial killers use codes some quite complex.
" It's one of those tings that you are,you have to be tenacious like a dog, I think, when you were in these cases."
Example Brain Regan,an intelligence analyst who stole secret documents on US spy Satellites,hoping to sell them and bury them around the country,noting the locations in a cipher.
"The code was so somplex and he himself could not recall exactly how he enciphered the messages."
The key turned out to be his Junior High School Yearbook. Take a pair of numbers from his code,mark off that many pictures from his own photo,then count / the number of letters in that student's name,to eventually find / the map coordinats for the secret stashes.
Another success for FBI code breakers whose fight against crime is a battle of wits."
Pete Williams NBC News, Quantico Verginia