Base 256 Encoding using Unicode (B256U)

This repo contains a small C++ program to represent binary data in base 256 encoding by using Unicode characters. Typical use cases are safe passwords, digital keys, file checksums, identifiers and hashes.

What is B256U?

Each byte is represented by exactly one Unicode character and vice versa each Unicode character represents exactly one byte. The mapping from byte to Unicode is quite simple:

Byte	Unicode	Description
0 ... 9	'0' ... '9'	10 digits
10 ... 35	'A' ... 'Z'	26 uppercase letters
36 ... 61	'a' ... 'z'	26 lowercase letters
62 ... 255	'À', 'Á', 'Â', ...	194 umlaut characters

✔️ Advantages

• It's short: just 16 Unicode characters represent 128-bit of data, 32 characters represent 256-bit of data
• It's safe: people are forced to copy & paste it
• It's easy to implement: see the source code
• It's easy to recognize: lots of umlauts (see the examples below)
• It supports double-click for copy & paste (no terminal characters in B256U)
• It's backward compatible: B256U uses Unicode 1.0 only (highest code point used is 385)

🔧 Requirements & Installation

Requires cmake and a C++ compiler. Then execute in a terminal window:

> git clone https://github.com/fleschutz/base256  # or download und unzip the ZIP file (click the green button)
> cd base256
> cmake .
> make
> ./base256

Examples

128-bit of random data in base 256: ĺËĀ8Ę3ĩŔá0VzœĹŀî, ŽTĭŊõł3ÐÑęGųĢÛąĶ, 5iŗ3īÛźUKĺŰÑÞbŒŜ, ņĨqvLŀŠsůØŸÙGCŰƀ, ŋôBĉOÍŬįēijmōįUĞÜ, Sőś6ŬŹŠęűöìÇthTK.

256-bit of random data in base 256: ħŅŹĬšÝŋţĀĸĻňőċqâĮŹúŪßWPŞÓā8æťÁüċ, Ě2ħŤRŧáÃĆĶ2ÕŀSŜöĄPŞÜbŰ06lŔùö9ĬŒģ, āLë2lÏäöĥųŧpğĨķŇHĺ4LăsŸđĵ_űLeYhĩ, ÂŚÔJàįŶļcvàPĈčIJċĉIJĂūęŻÉĢJĸķ3ğPĭŠ

How long does it take to break a random key or password?

Trying every possible key or password (called a 'brute force attack') at one billion attempts per second:

Key size	Time needed	Key example
40-bit	about 9 minutes
56-bit	about a year
128-bit	about 5,783,128,169,837,158,197,871 years	ĤŗwĹĦñŧīijēaqöĜĖŅ
256-bit	never, for all practical purposes	ÿőMêŽĖiĘśŃäŞŰÀ8ŒŽĎäPfSŖÔń÷Ī7ėëŷò

📧 Feedback

Send your email feedback to: markus.fleschutz [at] gmail.com

🤝 License & Copyright

This open source project is licensed under the CC0 license. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.