bacon-cipher

bacon-cipher is a JavaScript implementation of Bacon’s cipher, a.k.a. the Baconian cipher. It can be used to encode plaintext to Bacon-ciphertext, or the other way around (i.e. decoding).

By default it uses the most common Bacon cipher alphabet, i.e. ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTUWXYZ (24 letters). This boils down to the following translations:

a   AAAAA   g     AABBA   n    ABBAA   t     BAABA
b   AAAAB   h     AABBB   o    ABBAB   u-v   BAABB
c   AAABA   i-j   ABAAA   p    ABBBA   w     BABAA
d   AAABB   k     ABAAB   q    ABBBB   x     BABAB
e   AABAA   l     ABABA   r    BAAAA   y     BABBA
f   AABAB   m     ABABB   s    BAAAB   z     BABBB

Installation

Via npm:

npm install bacon-cipher

Via Bower:

bower install bacon-cipher

Via Component:

component install mathiasbynens/bacon-cipher

In a browser:

<script src="bacon.js"></script>

In Narwhal, Node.js, and RingoJS:

var bacon = require('bacon-cipher');

In Rhino:

load('bacon.js');

Using an AMD loader like RequireJS:

require(
  {
    'paths': {
      'bacon': 'path/to/bacon'
    }
  },
  ['bacon'],
  function(bacon) {
    console.log(bacon);
  }
);

API

bacon.version

A string representing the semantic version number.

bacon.encode(text, options)

This function takes a string of text (the text parameter) and encrypts it using Bacon’s cipher.

bacon.encode('steganography');
// → 'BAAABBAABAAABAAAABBAAAAAAABBAAABBABAABBABAAAAAAAAAABBBAAABBBBABBA'

By default it uses the most common Bacon cipher alphabet, i.e. ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTUWXYZ (24 letters). In this case instances of J are replaced with I, and instances of V are replaced with U before further encoding the input string.

bacon.encode('James Vendetta');
// → 'ABAAAAAAAAABABBAABAABAAAB BAABBAABAAABBAAAAABBAABAABAABABAABAAAAAA'

It’s possible to pass an (optional) options object with an alphabet property to override the cipher alphabet. Note that in that case, no preprocessing (like replacing j and v) is done. For example, to use the full 26-letter alphabet:

bacon.encode('James Vendetta', {
  'alphabet': 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'
});
// → 'ABAABAAAAAABBAAAABAABAABA BABABAABAAABBABAAABBAABAABAABBBAABBAAAAA'

bacon.decode(text, options)

This function takes a string of text (the text parameter) and decrypts it using Bacon’s cipher.

By default it uses the most common Bacon cipher alphabet, i.e. ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTUWXYZ (24 letters).

bacon.decode('BAAABBAABAAABAAAABBAAAAAAABBAAABBABAABBABAAAAAAAAAABBBAAABBBBABBA');
// → 'STEGANOGRAPHY'

bacon.decode('ABAAAAAAAAABABBAABAABAAAB BAABBAABAAABBAAAAABBAABAABAABABAABAAAAAA');
// → 'IAMES UENDETTA'

It’s possible to pass an (optional) options object with an alphabet property to override the cipher alphabet. For example, to use the full 26-letter alphabet:

bacon.decode('ABAABAAAAAABBAAAABAABAABA BABABAABAAABBABAAABBAABAABAABBBAABBAAAAA', {
  'alphabet': 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'
});
// → 'JAMES VENDETTA'

Using the bacon binary

To use the bacon binary in your shell, simply install bacon-cipher globally using npm:

npm install -g bacon-cipher

After that you will be able to use Bacon’s cipher from the command line:

$ bacon --encode 'foo bar baz'
AABABABBABABBAB AAAABAAAAABAAAA AAAABAAAAABABBB

$ bacon --decode 'AABABABBABABBAB AAAABAAAAABAAAA AAAABAAAAABABBB'
FOO BAR BAZ

$ bacon --encode --alphabet=ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 'Julius Caesar'
ABAABBABAAABABBABAAABABAABAABA AAABAAAAAAAABAABAABAAAAAABAAAB

$ bacon --decode --alphabet=ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 'ABAABBABAAABABBABAAABABAABAABA AAABAAAAAAAABAABAABAAAAAABAAAB'
JULIUS CAESAR

Read a local text file, encrypt it using Bacon’s cipher with a non-default cipher alphabet, and save the result to a new file:

$ bacon --encode < foo.txt > foo-bacon.txt

Or do the same with an online text file:

$ curl -sL 'http://mths.be/brh' | bacon --encode > bacon.txt

Or, the opposite — read a local file containing Bacon ciphertext, decode it back to plain text, and save the result to a new file:

$ bacon --decode < bacon.txt > original.txt

See bacon --help for the full list of options.

Support

bacon is designed to work in at least Node.js v0.10.0, Narwhal 0.3.2, RingoJS 0.8-0.9, PhantomJS 1.9.0, Rhino 1.7RC4, as well as old and modern versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Internet Explorer.

Unit tests & code coverage

After cloning this repository, run npm install to install the dependencies needed for development and testing. You may want to install Istanbul globally using npm install istanbul -g.

Once that’s done, you can run the unit tests in Node using npm test or node tests/tests.js. To run the tests in Rhino, Ringo, Narwhal, and web browsers as well, use grunt test.

To generate the code coverage report, use grunt cover.

Author

| | |---| | Mathias Bynens |

License

bacon is available under the MIT license.