Inspiration

I first needed some inspiration. This piece of evidence shows that I found it. And ate it all.

secret message

With the sugar and cocoa rushing through my bloodstream I wrote my secret message: "A secret is best hidden in full view. This is called steganography."

story

I wrote the secret message in capital letters, and then started a sentence with each one of them. Taking care to write enough non-nonsense in the story that it could also spark a serious debate.

stegan3.jpg

I then felt evil. I made paragraphs out of the text that logically belonged together. The capital letters are no longer all placed underneath each other.

Johann

I then decided to make the message secret in more ways than one. My colleagues weren't to know it was me who installed the message, so I signed it with the birthname of the godfather of steganography. In a way this can also be a clue. My colleagues can google him and find out the message might have a secret hidden in it.

hello!

I began to feel generous. I decided to put another clue in the text. I chose a name for the scientific journal: MAF -- meaning 'strange, weird, funny' in my native language (Dutch). I got slightly carried away (I blame the chocolate) and I put another secret in my message. The page number spells "hello!" upside down :-)

stegan6.JPG

I then edited the lay out to make it look like a real scientific article in a scientific journal. I even found an actual MAF logo! (I think it belongs to a Ministery for Agriculture and Farming.) I also added yet another clue - the subtitle of my article now says: "maybe we are looking for the wrong solution to this problem?"

stegan7.JPG

I then gave our dear friend Johann Heidenberg an official journal's biography. The hint that his book (one he actually wrote!) was written in 1508 should give some clues to my colleagues as well. I also decided to be bold and mention that he is interested in cryptology as well :-) Just a tiny clue! And it can't be seen on any of the pictures, but I gave the first page of the story the page number 707. Upside down this spells LOL - an acronym for laughing out loud, of course. But it also means "fun" in Dutch.

stegan.pdf

This is the actual PDF of the whole thing, for anyone who is interested.

highlight

I printed the article, and I highlighted a random line in the article. It makes it look as though this is the controversial line that I want my colleagues to discuss over coffee! Also, it has the words "life long learning" in it. I don't know any educational scientist that can keep silent when those words are spoken or read. They (including myself) all have an opinion.

panic!

I then went to the coffee machine and put the faux article on the message board. I didn't want my colleagues to notice me putting it up there, so I had to be super quick. I then got back to my desk and prepared for taking a picture of the message board. This is of course a strange thing to do, so this had to be another under cover mission. I took this picture of my deks/ keyboard to try whether I could take a picture without it making that camera-shutter sound that would give me away. It didn't.

Et voila!

And here's my article on the message board! Et voila!

Eleanor and Arcane Education

I reposted the secret! I circled "a succesful professional life" because don't we all want that, and wouldn't we want to read how to get it? Also - above the dart board you can see Eleanor Roosevelt with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which I put there for another SF task!