phonobyte

phonobyte encodes binary data to phonetically pronounceable three letter words. The words have been chosen to be clearly understandable when spoken. phonobyte, while not by any means the smallest binary to text encoing tool, compares reasonably well with other popular methods despite being designed to encode to pronounceable words:

method	input	output	chars per byte	average increase
hex	\x11\x22	1122	2	100%
base64	\x11\x22	ESI=	1.333	133%
base32	\x11\x22	CERA====	1.625	162.5%
phonobyte	\x11\x22	dug gut	3	300%

Practical uses for phonobyte include to transmitting hashes, short cryptography keys, etc. in a way that is easy to read and be spoken aloud by humans.

Installation

Install from pip:

$ pip install phonobyte

That's it. The library has no dependancies. phonobyte supports both Python2 and Python3. It also comes with a test suite. You can invoke the tests by cloning this repository and running:

$ python setup.py test

Usage

Basic usage:

from phonobyte import encode, decode
test_data = b'test'
encoded_data = encode(test_data)
# prints: 'lab don nub lab'
print(encoded_data)
decoded_data = decode(encoded_data)
# prints: b'test'
print(decoded_data)

Lookup table

Each word in the table has been carefully vetted to be a valid word in the English dictionary, not be offensive and be clearly pronounceable with as little scope for interpretation errors as possible. The table was then randomised. The lookup table used to convert data is as follows:

byte	word	byte	word	byte	word	byte	word
00	jab	01	tip	02	led	03	rut
04	dak	05	jig	06	rud	07	pub
08	not	09	kid	0A	bid	0B	gup
0C	lep	0D	juk	0E	jib	0F	sid
10	fon	11	dug	12	lap	13	sog
14	bug	15	ret	16	net	17	fip
18	gad	19	peg	1A	gap	1B	fet
1C	rog	1D	lob	1E	lin	1F	pip
20	fud	21	lag	22	gut	23	reb
24	din	25	sun	26	jun	27	dig
28	rag	29	neg	2A	bin	2B	ben
2C	gob	2D	run	2E	fab	2F	lit
30	ked	31	rug	32	lod	33	rib
34	rip	35	sod	36	ped	37	dip
38	leg	39	sib	3A	sad	3B	sat
3C	pak	3D	jet	3E	bun	3F	gon
40	geg	41	bit	42	gud	43	rig
44	dek	45	pot	46	pug	47	ken
48	gub	49	rid	4A	pen	4B	nep
4C	gib	4D	jot	4E	pup	4F	tid
50	sin	51	kin	52	job	53	ted
54	fun	55	fop	56	dan	57	nip
58	but	59	tun	5A	put	5B	jog
5C	jit	5D	lad	5E	pig	5F	got
60	tot	61	gak	62	sot	63	rin
64	lid	65	don	66	den	67	pod
68	rit	69	gat	6A	ket	6B	sab
6C	rat	6D	bub	6E	dod	6F	dep
70	dup	71	tod	72	lat	73	nub
74	lab	75	pan	76	rap	77	tib
78	tan	79	bed	7A	seg	7B	lib
7C	kop	7D	fog	7E	tig	7F	sob
80	pet	81	lop	82	bet	83	bog
84	nog	85	gun	86	lud	87	sit
88	dib	89	dap	8A	ban	8B	kob
8C	nan	8D	pat	8E	pib	8F	lip
90	fan	91	big	92	get	93	bob
94	rad	95	ran	96	san	97	rot
98	bad	99	nop	9A	nid	9B	jut
9C	nod	9D	bap	9E	fad	9F	ten
A0	gid	A1	dop	A2	dit	A3	fid
A4	tap	A5	bib	A6	dog	A7	lek
A8	tog	A9	deg	AA	fob	AB	deb
AC	beg	AD	kan	AE	sug	AF	tup
B0	ton	B1	gag	B2	dot	B3	lot
B4	keg	B5	pap	B6	ren	B7	fit
B8	kip	B9	tub	BA	tin	BB	pad
BC	bip	BD	pun	BE	tug	BF	nap
C0	sag	C1	dob	C2	gig	C3	sup
C4	tag	C5	fub	C6	reg	C7	top
C8	jag	C9	nib	CA	sig	CB	kit
CC	dag	CD	set	CE	dud	CF	bab
D0	sud	D1	sub	D2	dub	D3	nit
D4	fed	D5	nat	D6	tad	D7	dab
D8	fen	D9	nun	DA	lug	DB	kut
DC	rep	DD	fib	DE	nab	DF	nag
E0	bok	E1	gab	E2	bot	E3	bud
E4	dad	E5	sap	E6	tat	E7	did
E8	gog	E9	dat	EA	rub	EB	pud
EC	bop	ED	lig	EE	dut	EF	pep
F0	fug	F1	bod	F2	sed	F3	sen
F4	teg	F5	pit	F6	fin	F7	dun
F8	rob	F9	let	FA	neb	FB	tut
FC	sop	FD	gan	FE	fig	FF	tab

API

There are only two main methods to use in this library. All errors will raise a phonobyte.PhonoByteError exception. The main methods are listed below with their defaults:

phonobyte.encode(data, return_string=True)

Arguments:

• data the binary input data to encode
• return_string if set to True return a string, if set to False return a list

Returns:

• A string of space separated words if return_string is True, otherwise a list of words

phonobyte.decode(words)

Arguments:

• words a string of space separated words or a list of words

Returns:

• Binary data

Licensing

The phonobyte specification itself is open for anyone to implement. This Python reference implementation are licensed under the LGPLv3.

Contributing

All properly formatted and sensible pull requests, issues and comments are welcome.