Re: User-generated obfuscation
There is an easy form of exactly that, as long as you can remember the order of certain glyphs.
Imagine a 3x3 grid like a tic tac toe board. In the upper left corner you place a single dot in the corner. In the top center you place a dot in the middle of the space. In the top right you place a dot in the corner. In the center left square you place a dot in the middle; in the center square the dot goes in the center; in the center right square the dot goes in the middle. In the lower left square the dot goes in the corner, in the bottom middle square the dot goes in the middle, & in the bottom right the dot goes in the corner. Now consider each square one letter of the alphabet, in this case A to I. Repeat the tic tac toe board with squiggles, x's, or even smiley faces until you have enough for all 26 letters & 10 numbers. Now you just have to remember in which order you created each grid (I suggest using 1 dot for the first, 2 for the second, 3 for the third & so on), that way you can simply look at which direction the square faces, at what doodle is inside the square, & do the mental math to figure out what letter/number it represents. You've just created a cypher that very few folks will be able to decode easily (if at all), much less on the fly from memory.
You can use that method to write passwords, using a line over the glyph to mean an uppercase letter or to multiply the digit by some value of ten (although Roman Numerals are a greater PITA than just writing out the numbers themselves).
My friends & I used to do this all the time back in school. We'd leave each other notes, leave single glyphs to confuse folks on sticky notes stuck to things, & generally have fun throwing folks for a loop.
I challenged one to write his English homework in code, he retaliated by daring me to write an entire book report the same way. I refused only because my teacher had no sense of humour, but I made up for it by writing a story that way instead. He laughed his ass off when he saw the 50 pages of single spaced, college ruled binder paper covered in hieroglyphics. =-)p
I kept a pocket flip cover notepad in my pocket for years, a tiny pencil in the spine, so I could take notes when an idea struck me. Putting them into code was a good way to make sure my parents didn't know what trouble I was getting into. (Had they been able to decode it, they would have grounded me so fast it would have made my head spin!) So do something along those same lines to keep your own notes, including passwords. The chances that some random stranger finding the pad & being able to read it are low, & knowing what's written there belongs to *you* is almost nonexistent. (Unless you have a mailing address label for yourself stuck inside the cover so they know where to return it, but that's another story.) =-)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
