5 ms·

I want random-text-overlay-pixelation (or some lookalike) as a feature instead of plain-text-pixelation. Giant black boxes everywhere is quite the distraction,

I want random-text-overlay-pixelation (or some lookalike) as a feature instead of plain-text-pixelation. Giant black boxes everywhere is quite the distraction, whereas blur/pixelation is not, so just make the underlying data random.

redisman 5y ago
That sounds extremely confusing
- falsenapkin 5y ago
  Ideally the user wouldn't have to do anything. Whatever your editing tool is would have some "text blur" mode which functions and looks like normal blur but the end result is blurred garbage.
  - andai 5y ago
    I think as far as culture goes it would be simpler to promote the idea that black bars are the only way to do it, than that you need to make sure you're using a special software that knows how to securely pixelate text. It is a cool idea though, and text-shaped pixelation is much more satisfying than random noise. (And if someone's cheeky enough to decode it, they will be very disappointed ;)
    - falsenapkin 5y ago
      You're definitely right.. but I still want my overcomplicated blur ;)
  - redisman 5y ago
    Oh I thought you meant it would replace black bars with random not blurred text lol
klipt 5y ago
> Giant black boxes everywhere is quite the distraction Opaque gray boxes then?
- falsenapkin 5y ago
  Honestly the right answer. Another commenter alluded to "right" blur and "wrong" blur not being culturally practical.
ElbertF 5y ago
I do this on my website with paywalled information. It respects upper/lowercasing and spacing but randomises each character. Anyone can disable the CSS blur but the data is still obfuscated. https://imgur.com/a/NY6xKie https://imgur.com/a/NY6xKie
- campital 5y ago
  This reminds me of Manning liveBook's obfuscation strategy [0]. It scrambles the letters to keep the majority of the specific details obfuscated while somewhat revealing the gist (word length, acronyms, anagrams, code segments) presumably to encourage sales and discourage piracy. [0] Ex. https://livebook.manning.com/book/programming-the-ti-83-plus-ti-84-plus/chapter-12/5 https://livebook.manning.com/book/programming-the-ti-83-plus...
- kzrdude 5y ago
  Potentially leaking names by giving out number of letters in name and surname? Just wondering. If so, consider killing or randomizing spaces and letter count.
andrewflnr 5y ago
I would think the real pro move is to make the underlying data be lyrics to "Never Gonna Give You Up" or somesuch.
Xavdidtheshadow 5y ago
My employer makes a tool that does this! It's a screenshot tool we had been using internally for years that we released last year. It takes a sample of the colors in the image and uses them for random-looking obfuscation. So it's obvious that the data is hidden, but there's no pattern or way to un-blur that data. It doesn't work as well on low-contrast images, but we find it quite useful for hiding sensitive data. Some examples: frog: https://cdn.zappy.app/f97505ba92625a0e949aebcfa4220852.png https://cdn.zappy.app/f97505ba92625a0e949aebcfa4220852.png wikipedia: https://cdn.zappy.app/3b7d5cf750066633e40aeddda926f95f.png https://cdn.zappy.app/3b7d5cf750066633e40aeddda926f95f.png It's not really targeted at the HN crowd (requires an account, etc), but the app is "Zappy" if folks are interested. - https://zapier.com/zappy https://zapier.com/zappy
- yread 5y ago
  So, the distribution of the original pixels determines the distribution of the blurred pixels? That's an interesting challenge!
- mnsc 5y ago
  I think it's kinda hard to see on the wikipedia example what has been redacted. I just do "Obfuscate" in Greenshot with pixel size 16. Call me when this algorithm reverses this https://i.imgur.com/NYf0Dpe.png https://i.imgur.com/NYf0Dpe.png! :D

redisman 5y ago

That sounds extremely confusing

falsenapkin 5y ago
Ideally the user wouldn't have to do anything. Whatever your editing tool is would have some "text blur" mode which functions and looks like normal blur but the end result is blurred garbage.
- andai 5y ago
  I think as far as culture goes it would be simpler to promote the idea that black bars are the only way to do it, than that you need to make sure you're using a special software that knows how to securely pixelate text. It is a cool idea though, and text-shaped pixelation is much more satisfying than random noise. (And if someone's cheeky enough to decode it, they will be very disappointed ;)
  - falsenapkin 5y ago
    You're definitely right.. but I still want my overcomplicated blur ;)
- redisman 5y ago
  Oh I thought you meant it would replace black bars with random not blurred text lol

klipt 5y ago

> Giant black boxes everywhere is quite the distraction Opaque gray boxes then?

falsenapkin 5y ago
Honestly the right answer. Another commenter alluded to "right" blur and "wrong" blur not being culturally practical.

ElbertF 5y ago

I do this on my website with paywalled information. It respects upper/lowercasing and spacing but randomises each character. Anyone can disable the CSS blur but the data is still obfuscated. https://imgur.com/a/NY6xKie https://imgur.com/a/NY6xKie

campital 5y ago
This reminds me of Manning liveBook's obfuscation strategy [0]. It scrambles the letters to keep the majority of the specific details obfuscated while somewhat revealing the gist (word length, acronyms, anagrams, code segments) presumably to encourage sales and discourage piracy. [0] Ex. https://livebook.manning.com/book/programming-the-ti-83-plus-ti-84-plus/chapter-12/5 https://livebook.manning.com/book/programming-the-ti-83-plus...
kzrdude 5y ago
Potentially leaking names by giving out number of letters in name and surname? Just wondering. If so, consider killing or randomizing spaces and letter count.

andrewflnr 5y ago

I would think the real pro move is to make the underlying data be lyrics to "Never Gonna Give You Up" or somesuch.

Xavdidtheshadow 5y ago

My employer makes a tool that does this! It's a screenshot tool we had been using internally for years that we released last year. It takes a sample of the colors in the image and uses them for random-looking obfuscation. So it's obvious that the data is hidden, but there's no pattern or way to un-blur that data. It doesn't work as well on low-contrast images, but we find it quite useful for hiding sensitive data. Some examples: frog: https://cdn.zappy.app/f97505ba92625a0e949aebcfa4220852.png https://cdn.zappy.app/f97505ba92625a0e949aebcfa4220852.png wikipedia: https://cdn.zappy.app/3b7d5cf750066633e40aeddda926f95f.png https://cdn.zappy.app/3b7d5cf750066633e40aeddda926f95f.png It's not really targeted at the HN crowd (requires an account, etc), but the app is "Zappy" if folks are interested. - https://zapier.com/zappy https://zapier.com/zappy

yread 5y ago
So, the distribution of the original pixels determines the distribution of the blurred pixels? That's an interesting challenge!
mnsc 5y ago
I think it's kinda hard to see on the wikipedia example what has been redacted. I just do "Obfuscate" in Greenshot with pixel size 16. Call me when this algorithm reverses this https://i.imgur.com/NYf0Dpe.png https://i.imgur.com/NYf0Dpe.png! :D