From what I’ve heard about the code embeded in the judgment for the Da Vinci code trial, it was a substitution cipher with the substitution index changing from letter to letter according to the Fibonacci Sequence.

The irony, of course, is that there’s nothing approaching that level of complexity in Dan Brown’s book. All the codes in the book are anagrams and mirror-image writing, almost trivial when it comes to encryption.

Cryptonomicon, on the other hand, is an excellent book on coding making and breaking, with some scenes taking place during the Second World War and some modern-day.

Now that the Conservatives have decided not to lower the Peace Tower flag for military deaths, governments are falling over themselves to out-mourn Ottawa.

The Alberta government will lower flags on provincial buildings.

Toronto city hall has done it.

And this just in… The municipal government in Flin Flon, Man., will lower their flags and wear black arm bands for a week after every death… And the people of Dildo, Nfld., are being encouraged to beat their chests with their fists and whail out in their grief.

Of course, the reality is the “tradition” of lowering the Peace Tower flag is about four years old. The Chrétien government started doing it in 2002.