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Weird geek question regarding ROT13 and Windows and Mac Users

Posted by techfun • 12/13/07 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: encryption, rot13

I know that like many professional geeks I sometime lose track of what kind of skills "normal" bloggers and other PC users have developed.

I am going to be starting a new and very different sort of blog, and part of it may involve the heavy use of ROT13 'encryption'. For those who don;t know, ROT13 is an ooooooooold method of obscuring the text of posts Internet newsgroups as an act of courtesy if it contained foul language or sexual materials. This meant that nobody was ACCIDENTALLY exposed to something they didn't want to see.

ROT13 encrypted text is MEANT to be easily decrypted. Its a simple letter substitution that aficionados of word puzzles would probably like. ROT13 replaces each letter by its partner 13 characters further along the alphabet. For example, HELLO becomes URYYB (or, decrypting, URYYB becomes HELLO again).

What I am wondering is of people think that they could handle decrypting posts that were so encrypted if they were given basic instructions or a link to a converter site like rot13.de? Or is this too difficult for most people?

(This would not be a monetized blog so I don't really care of Google can't index it or casual browsers cannot read it. )

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User Comments

  1. libdrone
    12/13/07
    libdrone
    rot13.de/ looks easy enough to use. I think the real question would come down to whether or not the encrypted content seemed compelling enough to make the effort of going to another site to decode it...and I have to admit it sounds like you are contemplating something intriguing enough to check out if you do put it up....
    [reply]
  2. Xight
    12/13/07
    Xight
    I remember having to write a perl script in vimm with a rot13 decoder for a programming class like 10 years ago. I thought it was kind of fun, but your audience would most likely be beginning cryptographers, and the like.

    I think if you target that audience, and also not limit it to ROT 13 but other letter replacement methods it might do well. Like by holding contests for fastest person to figure out the encryption or something.

    At this point I'm just rambling, but those are the first things that came to my mind.
    [reply]

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