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Secret Codes Protect Ancient Torahs

Posted by timothy on from the never-thought-about-that-before dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A story on Wired News reports the problems Jewish synagogues have protecting their Torahs from theft. The Torah scrolls, containing the five books of Moses, are hand lettered over the course of a year, are often hundreds of years old, and can sell for $50,000 or more. But Judaic law "dictates that not one character can be added to the 304,805 letters of the Torah's text", which makes them untraceable and easily sold on the black market. Rabbinic authorities have recently approved two computer-based systems to make the scrolls traceable: one takes a digital fingerprint of a Torah, a second makes microperforations in the parchment that yield a unique identifier."

9 of 679 comments (clear)

  1. Non kosher torahs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oy!

  2. Oh Well by joeybagadonuts · · Score: 5, Funny

    So much for looking for a signed copy...

  3. Bo-ring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oy, these Rebbes today, so unimaginitive. Whatever happened to REAL anti-theft devices for holy artifacts, like the one on the Ark of the Covenant that melted your face off?

    1. Re:Bo-ring by Fallingcow · · Score: 4, Funny

      Obviously, the Christians havn't done an apt-get update in a while, or they'd be upgraded to Koran 1.0. It's a total rewrite of the previous Bible and Torah software for the purpose of cleaner code and bugfixing. So far, it's also avoided the rampant forking problems that plagued most versions of Bible.

      Note: It's a joke. Laugh. I'm not Christian, Muslim, or Jewish; I'm just carrying this conversation to its logical conclusion.

    2. Re:Bo-ring by haggar · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not true: there are two known forks, sunni and shi'ite. These two versions are, unfortunately, incompatible and, if in proximity of each other, can cause the death of the users. Examples include Iraq and Pakistan.

      --
      Sigged!
  4. Jokes only Hebrew speaking Jews will get... by Avogadros+Letter · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Hey... at least now they'll have a Safer Torah!"

    <bah-dum-ching! />

    "... and if they got away with it, they'd be getting Loot of the Frum!"

    <boo hissss />

    --
    $ touch .signature
  5. Re:This Gentile says Mod Parent Down -1, Troll by popo · · Score: 3, Funny


    > We all have a right to our opinion


    Ah good.


    My opinion is that you're an uneducated ass.

    --
    ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
  6. dictates that not one character can be added... by Kiyooka · · Score: 3, Funny

    "...dictates that not one character can be added to the 304,805 letters of the Torah's text..."

    how about two? :)

  7. Not GPL compatable either. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    What about the right to make derived works?