Sending coded messages via Google SearchWiki

You can send coded messages through Google's new SearchWiki.  Much potential for game designers, ARGists, hackers, storytellers.

Recently released, the SearchWiki lets users add text comments to search results.  Users can share those publicly, which then appear on the results page of other users.  There are worries about this being abused by spammers.

But what if I leave bits of messages spread across different searches?  They might not be comprehensible on a case by case basis:

Without knowing the exact search query used to "aggregate" the comment set in any specific case, outside parties who might stumble across individual message fragments (as comments on arbitrary URLs) would be extremely unlikely to recognize them as parts of a coherent message, and would have no simple technique to locate the other parts of the message in any case. This is a key attribute of the described technique -- a message that is dispersed in this manner is unlikely to even be recognized as a message worthy of attention or log-based analysis.

The creator offers a proof of concept, which is also one storytelling intro:

Only one word in each of the ten comment sentences for this basic example is part of the actual secret message. Your mission is to derive the complete secret message, which is currently dispersed across the space of Google's search database.

(via Slashdot)

Comments

[Ton Zijlstra]

Hi Bryan,
this reminds me of the WWII wartime Radio Orange (transmitting from London), sending messages to the resistance in the Netherlands: ""The blue goat will eat at midnight", "The weather favors tulips this season", I repeat....."

[Bryan Alexander]

Yes! Do you know the numbers radio phenomenon?

[Ton Zijlstra]

Oh yes. As a kid I was very much into listening to short wave radio, and later became a ham radio operator. I remember writing down the numbers of such a station when I was about 10 / 11 yrs old, thinking to crack the code. This was during the phase that I guess every kid goes through, discovering and playing with different kinds of codes and ciphers.