It did not take long. Dan Tench, a media partner at Olswang, who first discovered the “Smithy” code embedded in the Da Vinci Code judgment, has cracked it.
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2006.
Unnoticed for three weeks, Mr Justice Peter Smith embedded his own code in his recent Da Vinci Code judgment. Starting in paragraph 1 (page 5) he highlighted 42 letters in bold italic, the first ten spelling “smithy code” and the remainder (ending on page 13) a jumble yet to be decoded.
Yesterday’s New York Times reports him as saying that the different ways codes are broken in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code should be considered.
He then suggested moving on to The Da Vinci Code and applying one of the code-breaking methods used by its protagonists to solve the mystery of the jumbled letters. “Think mathematics,” he wrote at one point. He drew attention to his own entry in Who’s Who – in which he lists an interest in the history of Jackie Fisher, an admiral who modernized the British Navy, a possible reason that his e-mail address contains the word “pescator,” implying fisherman – and said that the date 2006 was significant.
He even mentioned a page number in The Da Vinci Code by way of trying to help. But he declined to go further, saying that “anything else gives it on a plate.”
For you DVC code-breakers out there, with the help of Google I’ve prepared an html version of the judgment which clearly highlights the code letters.
Another law wiki has just been started by one Jonathan (who he?). Wiki Mental Health is an internet resource on mental health law in England & Wales, primarily for mental health practitioners, to which anyone can contribute. There are currently three embryonic sections: commentaries on cases, with links to the full text judgments on BAILII; commentaries on the Mental Health Act 1983 and related legislation; and explanations of the concepts and terminology and practical guidance for lawyers.
Great editorial on the risks of corporate blogging by Struan Robertson, Editor of OUT-LAW.com – the best new media law service around.
After a quick sentence about the benefits of corporate blogging he points out its risks:
- the risk of defamation
- unhappy bloggers generating negative PR
- copyright and trade mark infringement (particularly easy)
- a joke provoking a sexual or racial harassment claim
- reader feedback sealing a contract without that vital small print
- … and more
But “the biggest obstacle to corporate blogging is not the law; it’s finding good bloggers”.
Struan wants to know if OUT-LAW should blog:
We’ve been running OUT-LAW for the last six years. It isn’t a blog but it has achieved many of the same things as a good corporate blog … But we recognise that OUT-LAW is now more than just a shop window. We have thousands of loyal users and we’d love to engage with them more than the current site allows. A blog might help. So should we blog? … Please let us know.
It’s the thumbs up from me.
More on the Blogging4Business plenary session on corporate blogging which Struan introduced: Rules, regs and how to do business blogging safely.
BlogScript is a UK-based cyberlaw blog by Lilian Edwards on innovation, technology and the law, specialising in online privacy and security law, cybercrime, online intermediary law (including eBay and Google law), e-commerce, digital property and whatever captures her eye – “with the odd tartan moment”.
Ian Best, a third-year law student at Ohio State University, has just completed a Taxonomy of American and Canadian Legal Blogs, entitled 3L Epiphany, as part of a”blog-for-credit” Independent Study project.
I created 3L Epiphany primarily to study the growing phenomenon of legal blogs, the weblogs of lawyers, law professors, and law students. I have three main purposes in mind:
First, 3L Epiphany will be a typical, personal blog where I can learn the practical aspects of blogging. I believe that the skills which I learn from this endeavor will be marketable ones, since blogging is becoming more prevalent in the legal community.
Second, 3L Epiphany will demonstrate the potential uses of a law student blog as a research tool. I believe that blogging can provide an entirely new technique for conducting and displaying legal scholarship.
Third, 3L Epiphany will provide a comprehensive taxonomy of legal blogs as an online service to the legal profession. I believe that the blogosphere suffers from a lack of an efficient infrastructure. 3L Epiphany will exemplify a cohesive system for organizing legal blogs.
Forget all those blogrolls and listings elsewhere; this impressive project looks like the definitive listing of the several hundred North American law blogs.
Two comments in a recent Times article on law firm blogging support my view that the blogosphere occupies the position that the web itself did 10 years ago. Hands up those who, in 1996, did not appreciate the significance of the web as a marketing tool?
If your firm doesn’t have at least one lawyer who is blogging, you look like a firm who, in 1996, didn’t have a website yet.
(Andy Haven, a US legal marketing manager)
Having a blog conveys an impression that we are not a stuffy, old-style firm but are aware of and comfortable with new ways to communicate with a broad audience.
(Nan Joeston, a San Francisco intellectual property expert)
The article goes on to reflect the mixed current opinion of their marketing potential. A Clifford Chance spokesman seems to get it, albeit articulated in corporate speak:
Our aims for a blog would be to enable us to interact with our stakeholders on a personal level; to collect feedback on our services and products; and provide value in terms of useful content in the form of information, help, discussion and ideas.
On the other hand Martin Davies of lawontheweb.co.uk feels that law blogs “are not desperately interesting to clients” and Charles Christian of the Legal Technology Insider believes that “any firm that builds a marketing strategy on blogs is deluding itself”.
To my mind these latter comments do not deny that blogs have marketing potential, but point out that they are no magic bullet. All the same, you only lose if you publish a bad blog, and at this stage in the game there is little competition for the turf (remember 1996?).
More comment on the views expressed in the Times article are in Kevin O’Keefe’s Real Lawyers Have Blogs and Slaw.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is a new law enforcement agency created to reduce the harm caused to people and communities in the UK by serious organised crime. It takes over the functions of the National Crime Squad (NCS), the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), the role of HMRC in investigating drug trafficking and related criminal finance and some of the functions of the UK Immigration Service (UKIS) in dealing with organised immigration crime.
The Tribunals Service, launched 1 April 2006, is a new executive agency of the DCA, providing common administrative support to the main central government tribunals. It marks the biggest change to the tribunals system in almost half a century. The following are now part of the Tribunals Service (some having transferred sponsoring departments), with new websites to a common design:
Adjudicator for HM Lands Registry
Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel
General Commissioners of Income Tax
Social Security and Child Support Appeals
Social Security & Child Support Commissioners
Special Educational Needs & Disability Tribunal
A number of other government tribunals expected to join the Tribunals Service in the future, including the Agricultural Land Tribunal, the Asylum Support Adjudicators, the Care Standards Tribunal and the Family Health Services Appeal Authority.
More info on the Tribunals Service Programme is on the DC pages.
Recent comments
- Comment on ICLR online – who’s putting it through its paces? by Bex
- Comment on Are (law) ebooks the future? by Stephen
- Comment on The future of legal blogging by Binary Law · The future of legal blogging | Media Law | Scoop.it
- Comment on BAILII: Is free law enough? by Holmes on BAILII and Free Access to Law « Legal Informatics Blog
- Comment on BAILII: Is free law enough? by BAILII: Is free law enough? « FreeLegalWeb
- Comment on BAILII: Is free law enough? by Nick Holmes
- Comment on BAILII: Is free law enough? by Judith Townend
- Comment on Google+ thoughts so far by AlanFosterK