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Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

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Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#61

Post by EamonnMR »

laumars wrote: post #42
EamonnMR wrote: post #13

I'll be sure to add a link to http://zerowidth.space

It feels like you're trying to make a point on that site but I cannot fathom out what that point was. Are you saying zero width spaces are bad? Are you educating people that they exist? It's not all too clear what your point is. Also I disagree with the following: > If you're working on a website there's a good chance that someone will want to copy/paste it, automate using it, etc. Zero-width spaces will create no en…

> Zero-width spaces will create no end of hassle to those people.

It's up to you to decide what to do with that information.

> newString = replace(originalString, "​", " ")

If I could have registered "zerowidth.character" I would have. You've got to handle different characters and such.

I should say that the site is mainly a joke because we had to use a particular tool which had a bunch of zero width spaces in it, and it got on our nerves.

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#62

Post by needToSay »

kerkeslager wrote: post #4

I agree with other users who said that it would be nice if this happened automatically instead of on click--I think after the initial novelty wore off, I'd probably forget to click it. It might be cleaner to just strip the non-printing characters and display a number of characters stripped, similar to how ad blockers display the number of ads blocked.

But that would be a performance killer or what?

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#63

Post by kerkeslager »

needToSay wrote: post #62
kerkeslager wrote: post #4

I agree with other users who said that it would be nice if this happened automatically instead of on click--I think after the initial novelty wore off, I'd probably forget to click it. It might be cleaner to just strip the non-printing characters and display a number of characters stripped, similar to how ad blockers display the number of ads blocked.

But that would be a performance killer or what?

I'd rather my browser did the right thing slowly than the wrong thing fast.

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#64

Post by jannes »

kerkeslager wrote: post #4

I agree with other users who said that it would be nice if this happened automatically instead of on click--I think after the initial novelty wore off, I'd probably forget to click it. It might be cleaner to just strip the non-printing characters and display a number of characters stripped, similar to how ad blockers display the number of ads blocked.

How would you analyse content that's asynchronously loaded and inserted into the DOM?

I think DOM mutation observers would be a huge hit on performance.

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#65

Post by gkya »

logicallee wrote: post #46
cyphar wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> `vis`: display non-printable characters in a visual format Or `cat -v`, the namesake of http://cat-v.org/ . :P

what is cat-v.org? (Obviously I visited that link, read the about page - I'm asking for your summary. it's still not clear to me after my initial visit.)

Nostalgic Unix nerds hating on everything that (i) was not in original Unix, or (ii) in Plan9, or (iii) not implemented by authors of these.

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#66

Post by gkya »

pavelbr wrote: post #19
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #18

A bit tangential, here's a few unix utils you can use to inspect text: `vis`: display non-printable characters in a visual format `cat -e`: Display non-printing characters and display a dollar sign (`$') at the end of each line. `hexdump -c`: Display the input offset in hexadecimal, followed by sixteen space-separated, three column, space-filled, characters of input data per line. `od -a`: Output named characters.

Is `hexdump` not `xxd`?

xxd is part of vim IIRC.

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#67

Post by kerkeslager »

jannes wrote: post #64
kerkeslager wrote: post #4

I agree with other users who said that it would be nice if this happened automatically instead of on click--I think after the initial novelty wore off, I'd probably forget to click it. It might be cleaner to just strip the non-printing characters and display a number of characters stripped, similar to how ad blockers display the number of ads blocked.

How would you analyse content that's asynchronously loaded and inserted into the DOM? I think DOM mutation observers would be a huge hit on performance.

I'd rather my browser did the right thing slowly than the wrong thing fast.

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#68

Post by sam1902 »

I made two python script to encode and decode string into and from zero width characters: Encoder: https://pastebin.com/DGansW69 Decoder: https://pastebin.com/ZVdvjnZc

I know it's pretty basic stuff but it does the job. The encoder outputs both in stdout and into a file so you can copy/past it more easily (from Sublime Text for example)

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#69

Post by bllguo »

ballenf wrote: post #23

It's starting to seem like the universe has some fundamental order for things that we can escape temporarily, but that are inescapable in the long run. 1. Photo and video evidence was a game-changer for establishing facts and chronologies. As we've seen, it's becoming harder and harder to distinguish fake photos and videos from real. It's not a stretch to predict a time when we'll only be able to make probabilistic s…

Like others pointed out, the "natural state" is even further from ideal. I'm not an expert on cryptography at all, but I think signatures would help in certain situations (and /u/jonahhorowitz brings this up above me). More advanced media - the next step beyond videos, maybe involving 3D or VR - would make fabrication harder. I'm sure there are solutions out there.

Re: Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to reveal zero-width characters

#70

Post by laumars »

EamonnMR wrote: post #61
laumars wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like you're trying to make a point on that site but I cannot fathom out what that point was. Are you saying zero width spaces are bad? Are you educating people that they exist? It's not all too clear what your point is. Also I disagree with the following: > If you're working on a website there's a good chance that someone will want to copy/paste it, automate using it, etc. Zero-width spaces will create no en…

> Zero-width spaces will create no end of hassle to those people. It's up to you to decide what to do with that information. > newString = replace(originalString, "​", " ") If I could have registered "zerowidth.character" I would have. You've got to handle different characters and such. I should say that the site is mainly a joke because we had to use a particular tool which had a bunch of zero width spaces in…

> If I could have registered "zerowidth.character" I would have. You've got to handle different characters and such.

Ahhh I didn't get that from the site. I thought it was focused on one specific type of zero width character

> I should say that the site is mainly a joke because we had to use a particular tool which had a bunch of zero width spaces in it, and it got on our nerves.

That's fair enough. :)

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