The address in Bourne, “where it all began” is 415 E. 71st which I believe is Cornell Medical. But in Bourne’s file, “Utica” flashes just before we’re pointed to the E. 71st address in New York. Pam Landy then communicated it to Bourne in a simple code. She described it in the form of a birthdate — “not much of a code” she later says. While I don’t think of the zipcode in the anthrax letters as a code (after some initial quickly stalled brainstorming), if it were, what might it be? For example, before looping in the fellow who knew the significance of the address, the CIA folks were quickly taking the address, which had been coded as a birthdate, and guessing at geographical coordinates or a zip code.
TrebleRebel’s brilliant examples of steganography in the thread above are clearly intended to show that Ed doesn’t know the results of digital manipulation when he sees it.
Trivia question: What NJ addresses did Al Qaeda operative Dhiren Bharot use on his application to Utica’s Mohawk Valley Community College? Who did he list as references? At the end of the day, isn’t the Amerithrax story going to be rooted in some fashion in central New Jersey?
Mr. Lake explains on his webpage:
“Note that the writer of the letter traced over several of the Ts and at least two of the As.
“THE DOODLING TERRORIST”
Is it just a coincidence that Atta is a name that can be spelled with just As and Ts? People who believe al Qaeda was behind he mailing sometimes point that out. The fact that most of the A’s and T’s were traced over cannot be denied. Anyone can see it. But what does it mean? Atta had been dead for a week by the time of the first mailing. But he was in the news every day and on the minds of everyone following the unfolding details of his journey to the World Trade Center. It was probably on the mind of the scientist preparing the letters - and, if he used someone else to actually write the letters, on the mind of that person, too.”
Ed explains:
“It seems very odd that a man about to commit a crime would doodle on such a letter. ... There undoubtedly could be many other reasons for the retracing of those two particular letters of the alphabet. I just can’t think of any.”
You can just imagine the same fictional CIA folks plugging the underlined letter from the anthrax letters and wondering whether it point to this article in the journal Gene by USAMRIID authors. Gene. 1988 Sep 30;69(2):287-300. The article is called “Sequence and analysis of the DNA encoding protective antigen of Bacillus anthracis.” Authors were Welkos SL, Lowe JR, Eden-McCutchan F, Vodkin M, Leppla SH, Schmidt JJ. at the Bacteriology Division, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Frederick, MD 21701-5011.
The nucleotide sequence of the protective antigen (PA) gene from Bacillus anthracis and the 5’ and 3’ flanking sequences were determined. PA is one of three proteins comprising anthrax toxin; and its nucleotide sequence is the first to be reported from B. anthracis. A consensus TATAAT sequence was located at the putative -10 promoter site.
When authorities determined that the anthrax had not been genetically modified so as to be resistant to antibiotics, Condi Rice told the President: “That’s the best news you’ve had as president.”
At trial for sedition, GMU microbiology grad student Ali Al-Timimi read “Genome Technology.”