Here’s a quick proof-of-concept for an idea I had this afternoon.
As you’ll see, the concept has a few flaws and limitations - and to be honest, I’d be surprised if it hadn’t been done somewhere before - but hopefully it will be new to you and perhaps, just perhaps, you’ll think of some way to make it better.
My idea was to encode a series of characters/words into a 2D diagram. Simply put, I’ve positioned the letters of the alphabet in a circular fashion and as you type, lines plot out the sequence of characters.
In the demo below, each letter can be used up to six times. Each time you use a particular letter, the next dot for that letter is used - this allows you to observe one specific path from the beginning of the sequence to the end. Also, when you hit the spacebar (as you do between words) the line will toggle between red and black.
Click anywhere on the applet below to select it and then see what happens as you type. Click anywhere except for the ‘reset’ button and you’ll see what the diagram looks like without the perimeter key.
I’ve been thinking about this and wondering if it’s useful or not. The main flaw at the moment is if your sequence of characters includes two adjacent letters on the display, the line will look like it’s passing through the dots in between. Although this could be solved by having fewer dots or by having a bigger circle, both of these solutions introduce further limitations. A computer wouldn’t have much problem with these optical limitations, though if we’re using a computer, I’m sure there are better ways to encrypt your message!
To further obfuscate the message, the sender could include a few details like the initial rotation of the circle (perhaps the circle is rotated 180 degrees so that the letter ‘N’ is at the top). Meaning could be infused into the choice of colours (blue lines could mean we’re talking about a rendezvous with the mothership etc).
As always, I’d just like a Radial Cipher “I am blogging this” t-shirt…
This just in: Samantha (my beautiful wife-to-be) thinks I should’ve called this post the dork-o-meter! Gotta love the brutal honesty.
