homoglyph / homoglitch

CLI tools to make text human-readable but machine-hostile.

They replace characters with visually identical or similar Unicode homoglyphs and optionally inject zero-width spaces to break indexing, searching, and translation.

homoglyph example

Each time you get a new unique line with homoglyph

# run 3 times
echo 'Just a random string for example!' | homoglyph
Ϳս​​ѕt а r​​​а​​​​ոԁom ѕt​ri​​ոg f​​or ех​аm​​​plеǃ
Ϳ​​ս​​​ѕt а rаո​​ԁom ѕ​​​​​​tr​​​iոg f​or ех​​​аm​plеǃ
Ϳս​ѕt а r​​​​​​​аոԁom ѕ​tr​​​​​iոg f​​​or е​​х​​​​аmplеǃ

Which a machine won't always be able to recognize

A string of different length with a different set and number of characters is always generated

for _ in {0..10}; do 
  echo 'Just a random string for example!' | homoglitch | wc -c | tr -d '\n'
  printf ' '
done

169 186 156 194 164 174 166 189 156 169 161

echo 'Just a random string for example!' | wc -c
34

homoglitch example

But if the result is not good enough, there is a more hardcore solution homoglitch

# run 3 times
echo 'Just a random string for example!' | homoglitch
Ϳ​​​​​​𝓾𝑠𝒕 ɑ 𝘳​𝚊​​​𝒏​​​ꓒ𝗢ｍ 𝐬𝕥​​​ꭈ𝑙𝑛𝗴 𝕗​​​ﮨ𝗋 𝓮​ｘ​𝒂​​ｍ⍴іⅇǃ
𝗝​​ꭒ​ƽ𝘵 𝖺 𝕣​​​𝛼​​𝖓𝓭​𑣗ｍ 𝐬​​𝓽​𝗋𝚒ռ𝑔 ẝ​𝛐𝐫 е​​​​​​​​​​𝔁​​​аｍ𝞀𝙡𝐞ⵑ
ꓙ​​​𝑢​𝐬𝔱 𝛂 ᴦ𝖺​​​​​​𝗇ⅾ૦ｍ 𝖘​𝖙​​𝚛⏽ո𝖌 ẝ​​​𐐬𝓇 𝙚​⤫ɑｍ𝝔​​𝚕ｅ！

Build

First, generate homoglyphs.go from a homoglyph set:

homoglyph

# For a visually invisible replacement
rm homo*.go
go run generate.go glyph.txt
CGO_ENABLED=0 go build -o homoglyph.exe -ldflags "-s -w" -trimpath -gcflags=all="-N -l" ./...
rm homoglyph.go
# or
./build.sh glyph.txt

homoglitch

# For aggressive chaotic substitution
rm homo*.go
go run generate.go glitch.txt
CGO_ENABLED=0 go build -o homoglitch.exe -ldflags "-s -w" -trimpath -gcflags=all="-N -l" ./...
rm homoglitch.go
# or
./build.sh glitch.txt

The glitch.txt file is based on codebox/homoglyph.

some tests

Test data files 149K alice29.txt, 471K plrabn12.txt and 3,9M bible.txt from https://corpus.canterbury.ac.nz/descriptions/

## alice29.txt
sync; time homoglyph < alice29.txt > alice29-glyph.txt

real    0m0,048s
user    0m0,000s
sys     0m0,000s
# 436K alice29-glyph.txt

sync; time homoglitch < alice29.txt > alice29-glitch.txt

real    0m0,052s
user    0m0,000s
sys     0m0,000s
# 664K alice29-glitch.txt

## plrabn12.txt
sync; time homoglyph < plrabn12.txt > plrabn12-glyph.txt

real    0m0,099s
user    0m0,000s
sys     0m0,000s
# 1,4M plrabn12-glyph.txt

sync; time homoglitch < plrabn12.txt > plrabn12-glitch.txt

real    0m0,107s
user    0m0,000s
sys     0m0,000s
# 2,2M plrabn12-glitch.txt

## bible.txt
sync; time homoglyph < bible.txt > bible-glyph.txt

real    0m0,486s
user    0m0,000s
sys     0m0,000s
# 12M bible-glyph.txt

sync; time homoglitch < bible.txt > bible-glitch.txt

real    0m0,567s
user    0m0,000s
sys     0m0,000s
# 19M bible-glitch.txt