Excerpt:
US, Swedish researchers crack 250-year-old cipher
Scientists in California and Sweden said they have used computer translation techniques to solve a 250-year-old mystery by deciphering a coded manuscript written for a secret society.
The Associated Press
Scientists in California and Sweden said they have used computer translation techniques to solve a 250-year-old mystery by deciphering a coded manuscript written for a secret society.
The University of Southern California announced Tuesday that researchers had broken the Copiale Cipher, a 105-page, 18th century document from Germany.
The handwritten, beautifully bound book didn't contain any sort of Da Vinci Code but rather a snapshot of the arcane rituals practiced by one of the many secret societies that flourished in the 1700s.
It also recorded rites for some apparent sects of Freemasonry that showed political leanings.
"This opens up a window for people who study the history of ideas and the history of secret societies," USC computer scientist Kevin Knight, who was on the deciphering team, said in a statement. "Historians believe that secret societies have had a role in revolutions, but all that is yet to be worked out, and a big part of the reason is because so many documents are enciphered."
The handwritten Copiale Cipher was discovered in East Berlin after the Cold War and is now in a private collection. Most of the book was written in a cipher of 90 characters that included abstract symbols and Roman and Greek letters.
Knight and Beata Megyesi and Christiane Schaefer of Sweden's Uppsala University went to work cracking it earlier this year. They used a computer program to automate a key code-breaking procedure - tallying the frequency and grouping of the letters and symbols - then automated the process of comparing the cipher to known languages.
It's a method used by many automated translation programs.
The researchers tried the Roman letters first, comparing them to some 80 languages.
"It took quite a long time and resulted in complete failure," Knight said.
Eventually, they determined that the abstract symbols, not the unaccented Roman letters, bore the message. The first words deciphered were German for "ceremonies of initiation" and "secret section."
The initiation rites were for an "ocular society" that used a lot of eye-based symbolism.
For example, a candidate was supposed to look at a blank piece of paper and be asked if he can see writing. If he answers no, he is given eyeglasses, tries again, and then his eyes are washed with a cloth.
"If nothing helps, he (the master of ceremonies) will announce that they have to proceed with the operation," which consists of plucking a hair from the candidate's eyebrow, according to the text.
Knight is working on cracking other ciphers, including one that San Francisco's Zodiac Killer used in messages to police during his spree; the last section of "Kryptos," a coded sculpture at CIA headquarters, and the Voynich Manuscript, a famous work from the 1400s.
The University of Southern California announced Tuesday that researchers had broken the Copiale Cipher, a 105-page, 18th century document from Germany.
The handwritten, beautifully bound book didn't contain any sort of Da Vinci Code but rather a snapshot of the arcane rituals practiced by one of the many secret societies that flourished in the 1700s.
It also recorded rites for some apparent sects of Freemasonry that showed political leanings.
"This opens up a window for people who study the history of ideas and the history of secret societies," USC computer scientist Kevin Knight, who was on the deciphering team, said in a statement. "Historians believe that secret societies have had a role in revolutions, but all that is yet to be worked out, and a big part of the reason is because so many documents are enciphered."
The handwritten Copiale Cipher was discovered in East Berlin after the Cold War and is now in a private collection. Most of the book was written in a cipher of 90 characters that included abstract symbols and Roman and Greek letters.
Knight and Beata Megyesi and Christiane Schaefer of Sweden's Uppsala University went to work cracking it earlier this year. They used a computer program to automate a key code-breaking procedure - tallying the frequency and grouping of the letters and symbols - then automated the process of comparing the cipher to known languages.
It's a method used by many automated translation programs.
The researchers tried the Roman letters first, comparing them to some 80 languages.
"It took quite a long time and resulted in complete failure," Knight said.
Eventually, they determined that the abstract symbols, not the unaccented Roman letters, bore the message. The first words deciphered were German for "ceremonies of initiation" and "secret section."
The initiation rites were for an "ocular society" that used a lot of eye-based symbolism.
For example, a candidate was supposed to look at a blank piece of paper and be asked if he can see writing. If he answers no, he is given eyeglasses, tries again, and then his eyes are washed with a cloth.
"If nothing helps, he (the master of ceremonies) will announce that they have to proceed with the operation," which consists of plucking a hair from the candidate's eyebrow, according to the text.
Knight is working on cracking other ciphers, including one that San Francisco's Zodiac Killer used in messages to police during his spree; the last section of "Kryptos," a coded sculpture at CIA headquarters, and the Voynich Manuscript, a famous work from the 1400s.
http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=1996_Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportunity_Reconciliation_Act
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In its September 13, 1996, "Legislative Update," NOW (the National Organization of Women) included the following: [2]
- On August 22, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 Conference Report to accompany H.R. 3734, the controversial legislation which repeals the 60 year old social safety net for the poor and requires welfare recipients to work. The legislation is very much like H.R. 4, the previous welfare bill that the President vetoed at the urging of NOW and other advocacy organizations. And, like the previous bill, the President received severe criticism from community activists, women's rights, social service advocacy, labor, minority, and religious groups in embracing this Republican-led effort to change the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. In response, the nominee promised at the Democratic National Convention that he would to make welfare reform "successful" by helping to create a million new jobs by the year 2000, with tax credits for companies who hire welfare recipients and from state plans which may utilize "savings" from welfare program cuts to create jobs for recipients.
Excerpt:
British state pensions face devastation following Hutton report
By Julie Hyland
15 March 2011
Lord Hutton’s review of public sector pensions advocates theft on a grand scale. If his recommendations are accepted by the British Conservative/Liberal Democrat government, the contracts of millions of workers will be ripped up. Rather than receiving what is due to them, workers will be made to work longer and pay higher contributions for a lower pension on retirement.The government-commissioned review covers 5.5 million public sector workers and the pensions of teachers, National Health Service employees, fire-fighters, the police, the armed forces and others.
John Hutton, formerly the Work and Pensions Secretary in the Labour government, unveiled his proposals for sweeping changes to the pension rights of state employees—to be implemented by 2015—last Thursday in a 200-page report.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript
Excerpt:
The book is named after the Polish-Lithuanian-American book dealer Wilfrid M. Voynich, who acquired it in 1912. The Voynich manuscript is owned by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, and is formally referred to as "Beinecke MS 408". The first facsimile edition was published in 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos
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