Mnemonic Words

This ruby gem was inspired by the xkcd comic ("correct horse battery staple") on password strength:

http://xkcd.com/936/

If you believe lists of words are easier to remember than a long number or random string, why not represent numbers as lists of words? And while you're at it, you might as well do some error detection.

Sample Usage

$ irb
2.0.0dev :001 > mw = MnemonicWords.new(
2.0.0dev :002 >     (0..9999999999), # Specify valid range is ten digits
2.0.0dev :003 >     0.01             # Maximum chance of undetected error is <= 0.01
2.0.0dev :004?>   )
< n: 4, -log10(p): 3.489438330097295 >   # Will create 4-word representation with
                                         # probability of undetected error <= 10 ^ -3.48...
2.0.0dev :005 > mw.encode(4155551212)    # Encode a US phone number as a list of words
"muscle hesitate trust two"
2.0.0dev :006 > mw.decode("muscle hesitate trust two") # Decode into an integer
4155551212
2.0.0dev :007 > mw.decode("muscle hesitate two trust") # Introduce an error
nil                                  # If an error is detected, result is nil

Credits

Special thanks to Alan Blanchard, Jon Hamkins, and Clark Brooks for helping me think through the error detection stuff.

Donations

Bitcoin donation address: 1MWeioFdnwFZC8eqJwxjKcA3SErKxEBu8V