cemr kc TOCEC DRSC QEI CWOVVC VSUO MKXXON FSOXXK CKECKQO

February 19, 2008 6:43 PM

Tell me what cipher I need for my daily commute.

I want to write privately in my little notebook, without worrying what words might catch someone's eye. Yes, I know nobody actually bothers looking at what anyone else is doing on the subway, but there's hardly even room in the car to move an elbow, and it makes me more self-conscious than usual. Besides, I have an Issue about keeping my drafts hidden and secret. I want to feel comfortable carrying around a notebook with my rough drafts and other sensitive material in my purse, while I travel around to the office and various office-related duties.

It doesn't need any actual security. It just needs to be opaque enough for the casual gaze or snoop, and by its codeness, say "this is none of your business." I tried rot13 for this purpose, but I felt like I was tapping things out in Morse code. The writing I did in rot13 was strained and telegraphic.

Can you suggest a cipher that lends itself to being written quickly and fluently? Or do I just have to practice a simple shift like rot13 until I get the facility to do that?

posted by Countess Elena to sports, hobbies, & recreation (29 comments total)

Learn the Cyrillic alphabet.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 6:46 PM on February 19, 2008

prior art.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 6:50 PM on February 19, 2008

It's not really a cypher, but mirror writing could fit the bill. Once you acquire the skill, there's no need to pause and remember the code, and it'd be as fluent as normal writing.
posted by CKmtl at 6:50 PM on February 19, 2008

Zed, seriously? I'm sorry I missed that one! I checked "code" and "cipher." Thanks!
posted by Countess Elena at 6:51 PM on February 19, 2008

.sdrawkcab etirw ot gninrael yrt dluoc uoY
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:51 PM on February 19, 2008

!xnij
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:51 PM on February 19, 2008

Have you considered using shorthand? It's not a cipher, but nonetheless is unlikely to be readily decipherable by your average reader.
posted by RichardP at 6:53 PM on February 19, 2008

You could buy a laptop privacy filter, and use it to cover your journal page.
posted by smackfu at 6:53 PM on February 19, 2008

Sloppy handwriting works pretty well for me, and it's especially easy on a moving subway train.
posted by bink at 6:57 PM on February 19, 2008

Like Cat Pie hurts mentioned I just write in a quasi-replacement cyrillic alphabet. Most people can't figure it out at all and took me about a day to learn.
posted by 517 at 7:02 PM on February 19, 2008

Heh, when I was in fifth grade, I learned the Greek alphabet and wrote all my journal entries that way. It was still English, just spelled as best I could with the Greek alphabet.

Sadly, my biggest enemy that year was smart enough to figure it out when he stole my journal. But it works well for keeping people from seeing your text with a random glance, unless they know that alphabet and realize immediately which language you are actually writing in.
posted by litlnemo at 7:04 PM on February 19, 2008

Zed, seriously? I'm sorry I missed that one!

Don't worry about it -- I remembered it was out there, so when the obvious searches on MeFi didn't yield it, I tried this Google search.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 7:10 PM on February 19, 2008

I was a Greek minor, but the alphabet hems me in a bit with its lack of certain English sounds. Maybe Cyrillic would be handier.

First, I'm going to try shorthand. If I could catch on, that would actually be tremendously useful elsewhere in my life -- I'm always trying to shorthand in meetings by omitting vowels, which makes my handwriting very confusing.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:10 PM on February 19, 2008

Seconding shorthand, or just leaving out the vowels.
posted by unSane at 7:12 PM on February 19, 2008

If you're just stopping nosy people reading it on the train, I'd start with ROT1.
posted by pompomtom at 7:29 PM on February 19, 2008

Elian - very easy to learn. Start with that link, graduate to this one.

Took me about a week to start writing quickly. As a bonus, it's designed to be beautiful.
posted by unixrat at 7:45 PM on February 19, 2008 [8 favorites]

Yeah, I just had specific ways to transliterate English sounds that weren't covered by the Greek alphabet, and I did it consistently. Cyrillic might be better. If you were a Greek minor, Cyrillic will be easy. :)
posted by litlnemo at 7:46 PM on February 19, 2008

"I was a Greek minor, but the alphabet hems me in a bit with its lack of certain English sounds. Maybe Cyrillic would be handier."

Like litlnemo says, The sounds shouldnt't put you off. If you can read it well enough, then that should be fine.

If you're worried about a surplus of greek majors tuning in, might I recommend the Japanese katakana alphabet. It CAN be done well enough to cover nearly all the sounds in the English alphabet: the only ones that would be real trouble would be r/l.
posted by Jhoosier at 7:57 PM on February 19, 2008

I meant to mention earlier; Omniglot is an amazing resource for learning about different writing systems.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:08 PM on February 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Okay, count me in the group that also wrote in Russian as a kid (13/14 or so.) I used Arabic for a while in high school/early college, but that's not the best idea on public transport anymore.

Omniglot is fantastic - go with the alphabets or the abjads, though, anything else is overly complicated.
posted by cobaltnine at 8:25 PM on February 19, 2008

In Cyrillic and a standard Arabic script, before I get langualynched.
posted by cobaltnine at 8:30 PM on February 19, 2008

Showing my once complete nerd-dom - when I was in high school, I took notes in Tolkein Runes.
posted by jferg at 9:01 PM on February 19, 2008

No cypher needed. How about just writing in a different language? This both educates you, and rules about about 80-90% of onlookers.
posted by filmgeek at 9:40 PM on February 19, 2008

Seconding Tengwar.

And like jferg ... I once had to explain in front of a class why I was taking notes in Elvish. The teacher didn't believe me and I was pressured to go back to using English.
posted by dhartung at 10:50 PM on February 19, 2008

Here are two I have used to write to myself. I used to write and read the first fluently, probably could do it again with a little practice. But nowadays I just use Ukrainian.

Quasii-phonetic exchange:
• Exchange p, t, k with b, d, g respectively.
• Exchange f, s with v, z respectively.
• Exchange m and n.
• Exchange l and r.
• Exchange y and w.
• Treat c according to its sound.
• Replace a with e, e with i, i with o, o with u, and u with a.
• Leave h, q, x alone.
• Mud dilloprw gunbrogedit du ylodi, pad od ruugz vuliokm imuakh. O tum'd dhomg emwumi wuart nozdegi od vul e medaler remkaeki dhuakh.

Frequent-letter permutation:
• Common letters in English text are etaoin shrdlu. You could also use another mnemonic if etaoin shrdlu doesn't grab you by the grey matter. Maybe a longer one.
• Separate the common letters into vowel and consonant sets: eaoiu/tnshrdl
• For each plaintext letter, if it is not in one of these sets, ciphertext = plaintext. If it is in such a set, replace it by the next member of that set, looping from end to beginning.
• Nron'h ott nrada uh ni un. Bacoaha nraha tannadh oda dulucetiehty cimmis, o mojiduty if widlh cima ian esdacigsuzobta.
• And frequency analysis wouldn't help too much, because they're all so common and the sample presumably would be small. The unenciphered letters would be more help.

Dude, my next sockpuppet is totally going to be Ian 'Mojiduty' Esdacigsuzobta. He's a Scots-Basque kid who watches way too much anime.
posted by eritain at 11:33 PM on February 19, 2008

Have to second the suggestion of Elian - beautiful, fast, personal and similar enough to some arabic scripts (or elvish) to initially throw interlopers off the scent...
posted by benzo8 at 12:57 AM on February 20, 2008

If you're really paranoid, make something up: In middle school, I made up a phonetic version of English that looked somewhat like Korean. Each sound had a symbol, and symbols were grouped into syllables (and then words.) I can still read and write it fluently, and occasionally use it. I find it easier to deal with than a ROT X shift, and it looks much prettier too.
posted by ubersturm at 1:33 AM on February 20, 2008

These are all great (and thanks for the pointer to Elian). But if you're not tired of codes, you could use the Gibberish Kanji Tattoo code.
posted by adamrice at 8:09 AM on February 20, 2008

I'm not Mormon, but I always wanted to write fluently in the Deseret Alphabet. It was designed as a new phonetic alphabet for English, so it's got all of the sounds English speakers know and use, it just represents those sounds differently.
posted by harkin banks at 3:40 PM on February 20, 2008