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Unintentional Encryption
- 82 statements
- 15 feature instances
- 3 referencing feature instances
| Unintentional Encryption | type |
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| Unintentional Encryption | label |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption | page |
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| Unintentional Encryption | comment |
A document is lost or stolen, and whoever intercepts it cannot use it (or if they do try using the information, it ends up blowing up in their face) due to certain aspects of the document itself. The thing is, these aspects were unintentional, not a conscious decision on the part of the creator. Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })Compare The Illegible, where a a document is unreadable because of poor handwriting. Examples: |
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| Unintentional Encryption | fetched |
2023-02-16T01:28:44Z | |
| Unintentional Encryption | parsed |
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| Unintentional Encryption | isPartOf |
DBTropes | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_1b386512 | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_1b386512 | comment |
Ranma ½: A manga chapter and anime episode are focused on Happōsai's attempt to rediscover his legendary technique (which he forgot about), the Happō-Dai-Karin, and the gang's efforts to prevent him. When the scroll sporting the secret technique is finally retrieved, nobody can read it because of Happōsai's atrocious handwriting. This include Happō himself, which frustrates him so much that he ends up tearing the scroll. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_1b386512 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_1b386512 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Ranma ½ (Manga) | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_1b386512 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_2b0b461e | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_2b0b461e | comment |
In the Black Widowers story "The Three Numbers", a note giving the combination to a safe as "l2r27l5" is misinterpreted because it was typed on a machine which used identical characters for the letter "l" and the digit "1", and the ambiguity never occurred to the person trying to open the safe until Henry figured it out. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_2b0b461e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_2b0b461e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Black Widowers | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_2b0b461e | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_37419634 | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_37419634 | comment |
In Discworld Noir, Lewton finds a clue scrawled on the wall by a dying murder victim. The message's meaning is obscured for a while, until Lewton realizes that it was written just after the victim's killer had hung them upside-down, hence was written that way as well. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_37419634 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_37419634 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Discworld Noir (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_37419634 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_4830dea | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_4830dea | comment |
Mairelon the Magician has a variant with Henri d'Armand's spellbook. As long as he had the base version of a ritual spell in front of him, Henri could easily remember all the little tweaks he needed to make it work the way he wanted, so he never wrote those down. So when the antagonist gets his hands on the spellbook, he finds it full of spells that look like they're complete but don't actually work. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_4830dea | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_4830dea | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mairelon the Magician | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_4830dea | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_4b6ea815 | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_4b6ea815 | comment |
Tatiana, one of the sequels to Gorky Park, has a murdered translator who kept his notebook in a highly personal form of shorthand; as a result, a significant part of the book consists of attempting to decipher the entries. One such entry reads: | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_4b6ea815 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_4b6ea815 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Gorky Park | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_4b6ea815 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_73b4d4c1 | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_73b4d4c1 | comment |
This is part of how Call of Cthulhu justifies your characters needing literal weeks (sometimes dozens of them) to fully study a Tome of Eldritch Lore. These books were written centuries ago, in languages that are often dead by the modern day, and using codes and systems known only to their authors. Most of the time spent studying them is less about actually reading the text and more trying to make the text comprehensible. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_73b4d4c1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_73b4d4c1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Call of Cthulhu (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_73b4d4c1 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_77bda8e9 | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_77bda8e9 | comment |
In Witches Abroad, Granny Weatherwax does manage to tease a limited amount of useful information out of Desiderata Hollow's notes on Genua's political situation, but it's tough going, as it was written to remind Mistress Hollow of things she already knew and is filled with undefined abbreviations, unexplained assumptions, and, most annoyingly, foreign words. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_77bda8e9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_77bda8e9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Witches Abroad | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_77bda8e9 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_7c432481 | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_7c432481 | comment |
In The Westing Game, one character's notes are stolen. She puts up a want-ad requesting their return and stating that they are useless to anyone but her, because she knows this trope is in play — some of the other characters do turn out to know shorthand, but none of them also know Polish. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_7c432481 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_7c432481 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Westing Game | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_7c432481 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_82439e64 | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_82439e64 | comment |
In an episode of The Office (US), Dwight steals Michael's rolodex, which is filled with the names of several clients and color-coded personal information about them. The color-coding, however, is highly idiosyncratic; for example, green means "go right ahead and shut up about that", while orange means "orange you glad I didn't bring that up?" (in a talking-head sequence, Michael admits that most of the colors are admonitions not to mention those topics). As a result, Dwight brings up a client's gay son (which is color coded green, so to Dwight it must have seemed to mean it was OK to discuss), and as a result ends up sabotaging the sale he's attempting to make. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_82439e64 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_82439e64 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Office (US) | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_82439e64 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_c104a0eb | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_c104a0eb | comment |
In The Book of Eli, Carnegie is trying to steal the book that Eli is carrying. In this After the End setting, books are rare and Bibles even rarer, and he thinks that if he gets his hands on one, he can use it to manipulate other people. He does finally get it in the end, only to discover that it's written in Braille, and the only other person capable of reading it refuses to do so. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_c104a0eb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_c104a0eb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Book of Eli | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_c104a0eb | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_d217e378 | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_d217e378 | comment |
The "The Messy Note" puzzle in Professor Layton and the Unwound Future involves making sense of a note which is obscured by the writer's horrible handwriting. It's supposed to have the number required to open a locked door on it, but it only says, "RHB=". It's actually a hastily written "121-113=", so the answer is "8". | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_d217e378 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_d217e378 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_d217e378 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_df073316 | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_df073316 | comment |
All-Star Superman: While being interviewed by Clark Kent in prison, Lex Luthor becomes suspicious about what the reporter is writing and takes his notepad. After failing to understand Clark's "unintelligble squiggles", Lex brags that he can crack any code. Clark corrects him by stating it's just shorthand. A flummoxed Lex hands the pad back to Clark but mentally notes that shorthand is something new for him to learn. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_df073316 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_df073316 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| All-Star Superman (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_df073316 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ea000bae | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ea000bae | comment |
Great Grand Uncle Schimmelhorns Toolbox: Taylor explains that deciphering Schimmelhorn's journals is extremely difficult because they were written in an esoteric mix of English, German, and a large number of terms that he made up himself because the terminology to describe his discoveries didn't yet exist. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ea000bae | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ea000bae | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Great Grand-Uncle Schimmelhorn's Toolbox (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_ea000bae | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ec25a849 | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ec25a849 | comment |
In an episode of Doug, Doug loses his journal and is afraid that someone will read it and reveal all his embarrassing personal information. However, his handwriting is so illegible that Roger Klotz can't read any of his "chicken scratch" when he finds the journal. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ec25a849 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ec25a849 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Doug | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_ec25a849 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ff0bf83f | type |
Unintentional Encryption | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ff0bf83f | comment |
In the Spirit of this trope, In Justice League Unlimited, Lex Luthor accidentally does a "Freaky Friday" Flip with Flash and realizes he's in a unique position to unmask the Flash and learn who he is. Of course, when he does just this, Lex realizes that the person under the mask isn't famous enough for him to know and is generally unmemorable in appearance, making it moot. | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ff0bf83f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Unintentional Encryption / int_ff0bf83f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| JusticeLeagueUnlimited | hasFeature |
Unintentional Encryption / int_ff0bf83f |
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