09.23.06

Another Plug for a Plugin… (and more)

Posted in Personal, Things on the Web at 10:06 am by Moody

In order to protect email addresses from being harvested, I have added the Caesarmail plugin, which dynamically converts all email addresses using “random-offset Caesar ciphers”. This prevents spambots from collecting usable email addresses from pages/comments. Spammers aren’t likely to take the time to decipher encrypted email addresses.

Q: What’s a Caesar cipher?

A: A basic character-shift method for encoding/obfuscating text. [More]

Here is an example of the ROT13 method: Urer vf na rknzcyr bs gur EBG13 zrgubq.

ROT13 is a Caesar cipher where the characters of the alphabet are rotated 13 places (e –> r, a –> n). ROT13 is often used because the same step that encodes the selected text also decodes the text. The nice thing about the Caesarmail plugin is that the offset is “randomly generated with each page view”.

Though simple and ultimately easy to decode, the Caesar cipher method can be useful at frustrating the casual viewer. Try this if you’d like [decoded text after the cut]:

. CDYWR MNBANENA MWJ , WXRCJDCLWDY BDXDPRKVJ , HCRERCRBWNBWR NBJL , BUJANVDW XW , NWRW OX NDUJE CXA J QCRF ANQYRL AJBNJL J . ANQYRLNM XC CUDLROORM NAXV NUCCRU J PWRQCNVXB BR NANQ .

You can create your own Caesar ciphers at the ROT-13 Encrypt/Decrypt page. You can learn more about ciphers and cryptograms at the Historical Cryptography page (server seems a little hit-and-miss on responding). But you probably are wanting the deciphered text, so here it is:

. Here is something a little more difficult to decipher . A Caesar cipher with a ROT value of nine , no numerals , case insensitivity , ambiguous punctuation , and reversed input .

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