Da Vinci's conspiracy of cryptography

18 May 2006

The Da Vinci Code, like all good thrillers, begins with a murder. The curator of the Louvre is found dead in the museum, his body disfigured and a cryptic message scrawled on the floor near him: O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint! It’s a code, one of a series of clues setting the reader on the path to uncovering hidden secrets about Jesus and his relationship with Mary Magdalene. Amidst the hype surrounding the book and movie has come a re-awakening of people’s interests in puzzles and codes. TV shows have jumped on the bandwagon, advertising mysteries ‘to rival the Da Vinci Code’. The judge on a court case involving the book’s author Dan Brown published a coded message in his findings. Even churches have gotten in on the act. An Anglican website has been set up, challengingdavinci.com, that mimics the official movie website and has its own religious code to crack in order to ‘find the truth’. These puzzles can be fun ways to spend time. But it prompts the question - is hiding the truth really the best way of serving it? Codes aren’t about truth, they’re about power. They are about controlling information, limiting its availability to those who aren’t in the know, and keeping it hidden among those who are. Cryptologist Ron Rivest writes that ‘cryptography is about communication in the presence of adversaries’. It began with finding ways of encrypting messages in war. In the mass media age, adversaries communicate along shared lines. It means people have had to find new ways of manipulating language and form to their own ends. People in power today are used to manipulating words and their meanings. Politicians in particular are skilled at responding to questions with answers that give nothing away that they don’t intend to. Holding power in the mass media age is about controlling the message. That’s also the main theme of the Da Vinci Code. The story’s villains are those who seek the secret of the Grail for the power that secret brings. At issue is the true nature of Jesus, and how Catholics around the world see him. Was he the Son of God, or just a political figure? The truth lies in the Grail, it seems, and whoever controls the Grail controls the fate of the church. Of course, unlocking a secret isn’t the same as knowing the truth. As we see in

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Da Vinci's conspiracy of cryptography

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