# Secret Mafia Code? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 19, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915 "2002-12-19T22:38:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![YellowTail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5ac83/32.png) [@YellowTail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YellowTail)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/1 "2002-12-19T22:38:44Z")
This summer after my grandfather’s funeral, I was cornered by a distant relative who bored me with his stories of WWII. :o All his stories ended with him being the hero so I figured he was making a lot of it up. He claimed to be in the intelligence field at the time. I’m sure he served and probably _was_ in intelligence. But my guess is he spent more time in the guard house than the inner sanctums of the White House, as he claimed. Anyhow, he claimed he knew a secret code developed by the Mafia. If forced to write a message, he could use his interrogator’s paper and writing instrument and faithfully write exactly what he was told to write yet still embed a secret message in it. I asked how. He seemed to get a little flustered (maybe my perception) and claimed it was top secret and couldn’t tell me. I doubt there is such a code. If it was top secret then why was he blabbing so much about it? An Internet search turned up nothing. But who knows, the old coot my have something. Have any of the teeming millions ever heard of this amazing secret coding technique? ---
**Author:** ![squid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@squid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squid)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/2 "2002-12-19T22:50:21Z")
Yes Of course youU cAn embed REal Codes in youR messAges, it’s eaZY to do. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/3 "2002-12-19T22:52:33Z")
Never heard of it, but theoretically it could be done. Through minor variations in the graphemes (slightly longer tails on _p_s and _y_s, angled crossbars on _f_s and _t_s, etc.), attention could be called to certain words. I don’t know if you could say anything you wanted to, but you might be able to get a message like _safe_ or _cancel_ out, which might be enough. ---
**Author:** ![YellowTail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5ac83/32.png) [@YellowTail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YellowTail)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/4 "2002-12-19T22:53:55Z")
Am not! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/5 "2002-12-19T22:54:01Z")
Or, you could go the quick but not-so-subtle route. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![squid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@squid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squid)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/6 "2002-12-19T23:05:16Z")
You should go rent “A Beautiful Mind”. Your distant relative wasn’t John Nash was he…just joking. ---
**Author:** ![Armilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e19b73/32.png) [@Armilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Armilla)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2002, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/7 "2002-12-19T23:56:49Z")
Sounds like an exercise in [steganography](http://www.jjtc.com/stegdoc/steg1995.html) though the precise details of how he did it are anyone’s guess. Known WWII technques run the gamut from invisible ink to stuff like taking only the third letter of each word to build a message. There are hundreds of ways of doing this, many available as pieces of software. I seem to remember seeing a lot of copies of DeCSS at one time hidden in web pages and images using steganographic techniques. I probably shouldn’t link to anything, but you can turn up the info on this pretty easily. More recent uses of steganography are things like digital watermarks. It’s an interesting side field of cryptography, I find. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2002, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/8 "2002-12-20T00:07:37Z")
I could tell you but I’d have to kill you afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![Turbo\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@Turbo\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turbo_Dog)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2002, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/9 "2002-12-20T04:19:49Z")
[Here](http://www.arches.uga.edu/~bryan/papers/mafia.html)is a little bit of info about the mob’s codes. This follows any bit of info I’ve ever had on the mob. Not exactly something you need NSA and supercomputers to crack. I’d follow your instincts on this one. ---
**Author:** ![squid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@squid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squid)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2002, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/10 "2002-12-20T15:11:28Z")
Mob?..There is no mob. Just “organized waste management”. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2002, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/11 "2002-12-20T17:49:55Z")
> [@](#): > > I seem to remember seeing a lot of copies of DeCSS at one time hidden in web pages and images using steganographic techniques. I probably shouldn’t link to anything, but you can turn up the info on this pretty easily. I’ll probably regret asking, but what’s “DeCSS”? ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2002, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/12 "2002-12-20T18:46:34Z")
CSS stands for Content Scrambling System, the protection used by movie DVDs. DeCSS is a CSS decrypter, used to crack that code. As for steganography, here’s a neat little program if you wanna play around with inserting hidden images and things. [http://www.outguess.org/](http://www.outguess.org/) ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2002, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/13 "2002-12-20T18:50:48Z")
Hold on, I think that the above link, [outguess.org](http://outguess.org), is a detector of hidden images for Linux systems. Sorry, people. ---
**Author:** ![Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2002, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/14 "2002-12-20T21:54:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by aldiboronti \* > \*\*Hold on, I think that the above link, [outguess.org](http://outguess.org), is a detector of hidden images for Linux systems. Sorry, people. \*\* Why be sorry? There’s more Linux users on the SDMB than you think. UnuMondo ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2002, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-mafia-code/143915/15 "2002-12-21T00:12:51Z")
a mob code??? hmmm…i think that once you fill out one of the mafia employment applications and complete your w-2, you get the code book. but not any sooner.