Sunday, December 7, 2014

Encrypted paragraphs in this blog are now a thing

If you're going through my blog posts and happen to chance across a paragraph of what appears to be complete nonsensical gibberish, keep your cool. That was a paragraph encrypted with the Advanced Encryption Standard (or AES) with a secret key specific to that post.

In case you've come here directly from a post that has such an encrypted paragraph, then know that the only way you can view that content is by having the right key. Simply use an AES decrypter tool (if I haven't included one in the paragraph already), and then copy paste the text, input the key and run the tool. You may need to decode the text from base64 which I use in my encrypted paragraphs to prevent character encoding problems.
If you're looking for such a tool, you should know that there are several online websites for this. Just give Google a try sometimes, you lazy buffoon.
Keep in mind that if you don't have the right key (the secret bit of text used to encrypt the paragraph and will generate the right cleartext when used while decrypting), then there is little sense in trying this.
The key is specific to the post that contains the paragraph. This means that all paragraphs in one post can be decrypted using the same key, but if two paragraphs exist in different posts on this blog, they will require different keys for successful decryption.

This idea first hit me when a friend of mine did something similar in his own blog.
I realized that when I write posts that include my perspective in general, there's often something I need to include that's personal, offensive, immature or in any other way just unsuitable for my general audience to view.
This could include anything from a rant about how I secretly hate my girlfriend's sister, to a note that I want my future self to read.

So why don't you entirely just hide the paragraph instead, Arvind?
Because I want to let the readers know that whatever legible text they can read, isn't the entire story.
That there is more that needs to be said about what I've written, but at the same time isn't meant for everyone to see.
I want to let the readers know that however astronomical, they have the chance to use the right key and decrypt that paragraph so they can take a look.

Also, to keep things more organized, and for the sake of my own convenience, I've labelled every post that has an encrypted paragraph with the "hidden content" tag.

In fact, to get things rolling already, here's an encrypted paragraph where I write about how I feel about this approach to hide inappropriate content. Since this is a sample, the key to decrypt this is "ogodplswork". Do not expect me to give away the key for any future content that I really wish to hide.

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

Here's another encrypted paragraph. Keys are specific to the post they are in. So the same key should work here too. Try it.

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