NAME

Acme::UTF1

SYNOPSIS

  use Acme::UTF1;
  use Encode qw( encode decode );
  
  # read utf-1 bytes from the input
  while ( my $bytes = <> ) {
    # decode to characters, and print
    my $chars = decode('utf-1', $bytes);
    print $chars;
  }

DESCRIPTION

Implements the utf-1 encoding for perl.

utf-1 is a way of encoding unicode characters so that they can be sent across networks that are unable to handle the full 8 bits normally required by utf-8. It will convert any character into a sequence of bytes, of which only the bottom bit is set, and is able to convert such a sequence back to characters.

FUTURE PLANS

Rather than converting to bytes where only one bit is set, we could produce much denser bit sequences

Using only the bottom bit leaves us open to interference. It might be better to use the _entire_ byte, sending all 1s, or all 0s, so we can use noisy channels. Or for data-hiding purposes, we could use the parity of the byte to hold the data, and send otherwise completely random noise.

utf-1 would be ideal for hiding messages in the lowest bit of otherwise meaningful but noisy data.

SEE ALSO

utf-7.

AUTHOR

Tom Insam <tom@jerakeen.org>