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). Here’s an online demo.

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

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);
  }
);

A string representing the semantic version number.

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'

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'

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 'https://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.

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.

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.

This project inspired Joseph Werle to create a C implementation of the Baconian cipher. Check it out!

Mathias Bynens

bacon is available under the MIT license.