Show HN: Simple encryption protocol I might have invented

4 points by Sujeto ↗ HN
I don't know if I invented this, in fact it probably already has a name. But I made this:

https://madprops.github.io/pager/

As you might notice it's just a bunch of words associated with other words. But also if you change the number at the top, the associations change, they move by 1 spot.

So the words associated on number 89 are totally different to those from number 101.

At some point given a large enough number the associations loop.

So how do you use it? Simple, just establish with a person or group that the pager you have to use is a certain number and that some words are to be deduced from it. Maybe the words are highlighted in some way.

It's not a full sentence translation since that would be hard and not really possible since the word list is limited.

But there's enough words to convey some concepts.

1 comment

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From experimenting, this looks like a Caesar cipher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_cipher) on an alphabet of full (English) words instead.

That’s easily broken if you have enough ciphertext. I guess that, with additional context (who’s talking to who, and what are the most likely subjects) twenty words should be enough.