FBI probes 'Mafia Bible' for code

Bernardo Provenzano allegedly took over the Mafia in 1993. Italian officials have handed to the FBI a Bible that belonged to suspected Mafia kingpin Bernardo Provenzano to see whether it contains a secret code. Provenzano, 73, was captured in Sicily in April after 43 years on the run.

The Bible found in his isolated hut contained dots, arrows and notations and investigators want to know if it is a code that will unlock other messages. Provenzano, who allegedly took over the Sicilian Mafia in 1993, is held in a top security prison in central Italy.

Italian prosecutor Piero Grasso said: "We need to do everything we can to see if Provenzano's Bible contains coded messages." Prosecutors say Provenzano constantly refers to the book, found in the hut close to his birthplace in Corleone where he was caught.

http://elsmar.com/jpg/Provenzano Hut.jpg
Provenzano was arrested at an isolated hut in April 2006

The hideout contained paper notes known as "pizzini" which had numbers that Italian code-breakers said referred to Mafia contacts. Mr Grasso said it was still to be proved whether a code existed. If there is one, it could help police prevent the Mafia from reorganising. Mr Grasso said Italian authorities had co-operated with the FBI over the Mafia "many times".

A US government official confirmed the FBI was "working with the [Italian] state police to determine whether there are any hidden messages in the Bible". Any code-breaking will be done at an FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.

Italian police say Provenzano took over as head of the Cosa Nostra in 1993 after then leader Toto Riina was captured. Provenzano was given the nickname "Binu the tractor" for allegedly mowing down enemies as a hit man. While on the run, he was sentenced in absentia for murder. A package of laundry sent by his wife led to his capture in April.

Brought down by clean underwear....:notme:

How long before Dan Brown or some conspiracy theorist writes "The Provenzano Code"?

As luck would have it, I just noticed this: Wartime Nazi code cracker rebuilt

By Tim Castle

LONDON (Reuters) - A code-cracking machine that enabled Britain to read Nazi military ciphers during World War Two has been rebuilt by enthusiasts after a 10-year project.

The replica British Turing Bombe -- a large cabinet covered in dials and full of electromagnetic machinery -- was displayed for the first time on Wednesday.

Fittingly, it was unveiled at Bletchley Park, 25 miles north of London, the country house that was once the most secret place in Britain, where codebreakers toiled around the clock to decipher German military communications.

By the end of the war in 1945 there were 200 of the so-called Bombes at Bletchley but once hostilities ceased they were all dismantled.

It was only in the 1970s that the veil of secrecy was lifted and the story emerged of how Bletchley Park and its Bombes helped crack the Nazi's Enigma code.

The breaking of the code was crucial to the success of the D-Day allied invasion of mainland Europe and is credited with having shortened World War Two by some two years.

Germany regarded the code produced by its Enigma machines -- typewriter sized boxes which used a different code for each letter of a message -- to be unbreakable.

But teams of British codecrackers, including the brilliant mathematician Alan Turing, devised ways of reading the messages by matching commonly used German military phrases with the encrypted communications they intercepted.

The Bombes used 108 electromagnetic spinning drums to test combinations of letters and reveal the keys to the Enigma code, which the German signallers changed every day.

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