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.