Visualizing hex bytes with Unicode emoji

#1

Post by mmastrac » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 1:05 AM UTC

Visualizing hex bytes with Unicode emoji
windytan.com

Re: Visualizing hex bytes with Unicode emoji

#2

Post by peteretep » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:00 AM UTC

I did something similar with colours in the console, but this is much cooler!

Re: Visualizing hex bytes with Unicode emoji

#3

Post by acqq » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:07 AM UTC

The mapping of only one byte to one symbol results in too many symbols in one fingerprint. Using more than 8 bits per symbol would result in something much easier to recognize. The goal should be "staple battery horse" and not "p k b t v r m n z x t c." Was my key "p k t b t v r m n z x t c" or was it "p t k b t v r n m z x t c," who can see the difference?

However another danger is all the emoji that look too similar. It can be too easy to forge one emoji wink instead of another. So it can be not so good an idea in general. But maybe somebody demonstrates the easyness of differentiation or manages to select only the symbols that are visually and cognitively different enough for the "alphabet." Still I suggest significantly more than 256 elements, and significantly different one from another. That's the hardest part.

Re: Visualizing hex bytes with Unicode emoji

#4

Post by TimWolla » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:15 AM UTC

acqq wrote: post #3

The mapping of only one byte to one symbol results in too many symbols in one fingerprint. Using more than 8 bits per symbol would result in something much easier to recognize. The goal should be "staple battery horse" and not "p k b t v r m n z x t c." Was my key "p k t b t v r m n z x t c" or was it "p t k b t v r n m z x t c," who can see the difference? However another danger is all the emoji that look too simila…

Yeah, at a first glance it looks like this is harder to memorize than some Hex numbers.

Re: Visualizing hex bytes with Unicode emoji

#5

Post by unwind » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:43 AM UTC

Neat! Melons and spruces!

This almost triggers my Stack Overflow-honed reflexes to go on a huge rant about the fact that there are no "hex bytes" anywhere in your computer. But I guess the OP's author really does know that, and is just being colloqial.

Still, it seems to create a lot of confusion among beginning programmers, so it's a somewhat unfortunate way of expressing things, in my opinion.

Re: Visualizing hex bytes with Unicode emoji

#6

Post by bugmen0t » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:54 AM UTC

acqq wrote: post #3

The mapping of only one byte to one symbol results in too many symbols in one fingerprint. Using more than 8 bits per symbol would result in something much easier to recognize. The goal should be "staple battery horse" and not "p k b t v r m n z x t c." Was my key "p k t b t v r m n z x t c" or was it "p t k b t v r n m z x t c," who can see the difference? However another danger is all the emoji that look too simila…

There are so much more emojis just in this block, I think it could be squeezed down to at least half as many.

Re: Visualizing hex bytes with Unicode emoji

#7

Post by JonnieCache » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 10:06 AM UTC

unwind wrote: post #5

Neat! Melons and spruces! This almost triggers my Stack Overflow-honed reflexes to go on a huge rant about the fact that there are no "hex bytes" anywhere in your computer. But I guess the OP's author really does know that, and is just being colloqial. Still, it seems to create a lot of confusion among beginning programmers, so it's a somewhat unfortunate way of expressing things, in my opinion.

I'm confused. What you mean is that all bytes are hex bytes if you choose to look at them in hex, right?

Re: Visualizing hex bytes with Unicode emoji

#8

Post by jarcane » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 10:06 AM UTC

Unicode is fun to play with. I found a trick the other day in Racket to squeeze text using ligature codes into fewer visible characters; really handy for tweet-sized code golfing.

Re: Visualizing hex bytes with Unicode emoji

#9

Post by acqq » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 10:08 AM UTC

JonnieCache wrote: post #7

unwind wrote: post #5

Neat! Melons and spruces! This almost triggers my Stack Overflow-honed reflexes to go on a huge rant about the fact that there are no "hex bytes" anywhere in your computer. But I guess the OP's author really does know that, and is just being colloqial. Still, it seems to create a lot of confusion among beginning programmers, so it's a somewhat unfortunate way of expressing things, in my opinion.

I'm confused. What you mean is that all bytes are hex bytes if you choose to look at them in hex, right?

No bytes are hex bytes. Bytes are bytes. You can display them however you like, even one byte as one emoji (what I argue to be too inconvenient representation in another message). But they are also not "emoji bytes." They are just bytes. As in "octets of bits," bit being a unit of information. And hystorically, the bytes weren't even necessarily octets, but some other group of bits.

Re: Visualizing hex bytes with Unicode emoji

#10

Post by michaelmior » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 10:32 AM UTC

acqq wrote: post #3

The mapping of only one byte to one symbol results in too many symbols in one fingerprint. Using more than 8 bits per symbol would result in something much easier to recognize. The goal should be "staple battery horse" and not "p k b t v r m n z x t c." Was my key "p k t b t v r m n z x t c" or was it "p t k b t v r n m z x t c," who can see the difference? However another danger is all the emoji that look too simila…

Knowing minor differences is likely to be unimportant. This really only matters if an attacker is able to generate a key with almost the same fingerprint. AFAIK, there is no way to do this. I do agree though that the string of emoji is still hard to memorize.