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Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

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Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#21

Post by breakingcups »

jodrellblank wrote: post #15
Vinnl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, really all it does is change the font! And blur images that have alt texts, which supposedly can also be reversible. Probably best not to use it for classified government docs :)

In FireFox people can get a similar effect with F12 -> Style Editor -> * {font-family:wingdings !important;} Or in Chrome, F12 -> Elements -> Styles on the right -> Fight with Chrome's interface.

Surely wingdings are reversible?

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#22

Post by pdenton »

This extension is pretty cool and I already found a bug. It doesn't work for elements whose font-family has been set with a !important flag.

It would be crude to set font-family to "Flow Circular" !important on every element (in the style attribute), but it would probably be much more effective.

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#23

Post by csunbird »

jodrellblank wrote: post #15
Vinnl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, really all it does is change the font! And blur images that have alt texts, which supposedly can also be reversible. Probably best not to use it for classified government docs :)

In FireFox people can get a similar effect with F12 -> Style Editor -> * {font-family:wingdings !important;} Or in Chrome, F12 -> Elements -> Styles on the right -> Fight with Chrome's interface.

Windings do have 1:1 mapping between characters and icons, so that would be easily reversible.

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#26

Post by bryans »

jodrellblank wrote: post #15
Vinnl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, really all it does is change the font! And blur images that have alt texts, which supposedly can also be reversible. Probably best not to use it for classified government docs :)

In FireFox people can get a similar effect with F12 -> Style Editor -> * {font-family:wingdings !important;} Or in Chrome, F12 -> Elements -> Styles on the right -> Fight with Chrome's interface.

I get that you were trying to be amusing with the Chrome comment, but in case you weren't actually aware, you only need to push the plus icon to insert a new style. It's the exact same number of clicks to accomplish that task in both browsers.

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#27

Post by Vinnl »

pdenton wrote: post #22

This extension is pretty cool and I already found a bug. It doesn't work for elements whose font-family has been set with a !important flag. It would be crude to set font-family to "Flow Circular" !important on every element (in the style attribute), but it would probably be much more effective.

Oh, good one! (Also, what sites uses !important, ugh...) I think I have a workaround for that, will take a look after work.

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#29

Post by pvg »

leokennis wrote: post #11
zeronine wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please elaborate

Anyone who has the time and means to reconstruct/deduce the words on your obfuscated screenshot based on the length of the blocks that this extension produces, will very likely have way more efficient means to spy on you anyway.

This isn't really true, random OSINT enthusiasts regularly do this sort of reconstruction on twitter.

Re: Show HN: Firefox extension to obfuscate web page text

#30

Post by enlyth »

tekchip wrote: post #24

Obfuscation with blur is trivial to reverse these days. Always block out leaving no pixels with which to reconstruct. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4679801 https://github.com/bishopfox/unredacter

The OP's extension doesn't seem to blur things, but actually transform them into solid lines which would be impossible to reverse, the only information that is left is the relative length of the words.
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