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From: Eli the Bearded <*@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art
Subject: Re: ASCII Art and cryptography.
Date: 12 Apr 2001 20:38:16 GMT
Organization: Some absurd concept
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In alt.ascii-art, Anthony Delorenzo <ajdelore@sfu.ca> wrote:
> Anyways, it has occurred to me that ASCII pictures would be an ideal
> method for concealing ciphered text.  An innocuous usenet posting or
> signature line picture could easily contain an enciphered message.  I'm
> going to try to come up with a few examples in the next while (and
> hopefully some perl scripts), but in the meantime, has anyone else done
> anything in this area?  Any URLs of interest?

Clinton A. Pierce wrote a program a while ago to embed sekret messages
into ascii art. He posted it to comp.lang.perl.misc in early Feb of
this year. A Google search (groups.google.com) should find the thread,
the subject line of the first message was "Apologies to Joyce Kilmer, a
hack for your enjoyment", and had this perl script:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

                    '% * % % * % %<>
               * % ~ * % % * % * * % *      *
       * % % * *   % * % *<> * % ~   % % % * %
     *  * * % * % % % % * % % % % % % * % % * %
     % * % % ^ * % % % % *[] % % * * % * * % %  %
      % * %   % % % % % * * % * * @ *   @ % * % %
    % ^ % * % * % * * % % * %  <> % % % % * % %() %
  % % * * * % % * % % * * % * * * * % * * % % * * *
   %   * * * % % * % % *[]<> % % % % * % * * * % % *<>
 % * *  % % % * * % * * * \ * %\ * * *   %/ \ # % * *
  % % % *\ * /\ * *// %  %\ <>\ // % %/ % \// % * %
    * * *\ \|| \ \/ / % %// \ \ *\ /<> %//  %// % %<>
   * % * %\  \  |   | ||// % || //  \// % // * * * %
   %{} %  * ----\   \ | /   %||//   /  ---/ / * % % *
     % *  *\ ____\   \| |    /  /  /   /----/ * %
            \ ----\     |   /   //    /
                   \     \ /        /'
                    =~m/(.*)/s;$_=$1;
                     s![-\\|_/\s]!!g
                       ;%e=('%',0,
                       '^',132918,
                       '~'=>18054,
                       '@'=>19630,
                       '*' =>0b01,
                       '#'=>13099,
                       '[]'=>4278,
                       '<>'=>2307,
                       '{}'=>9814,
                       '()',2076);
                       for $a(keys
                       %e){$e{$a}=
                       sprintf"%b"
                       , $e{$a};}
                     $y= qq{(}.join(
                     '|',map "\Q$_\E"
                   ,keys %e).qq{)};s/$y
              /$e{$1}/gex;print pack"B*",$_;

__END__

If you run the script, it prints a message. The message is hidden
in the characters used for the leaves. If it used a solid stem,
instead of a program, then only someone who know to run a decoder
over it would find the message. 

Later on Clinton posted a script to take a message, and a peice
of ascii-art, and replace the 'fill' characters of the art to encode
the message in a new bit of ascii-art. Eg, replace solid 'O's with
a mix of 'O' and '0' to subtly hide the message.

Elijah
------
I think that I shall never see a program as lovely as a tree.