Looks clean to me. Check out for yourself of course. Does bring up an interesting dilemma. We all download code, libraries etc. all the time without going through it with a fine comb...
Most code executed on my box comes from package managers, which often use code signing to make sure you're getting the right code. Other than that, we often have to depend on the reputation of the project, otherwise we would be stuck reading code all day, instead of getting work done.
The difference here is that this is not some long standing and reputable project, but instead just something that was randomly thrown up github.
tl;dr - I trust the Mozilla Foundation more than I trust jtwaleson
Note that the URL in the one-liner references the master branch, which can be updated at will by jtwaleson. A much better idea would be to use a link to a specific version if you are going to make claims towards its cleanliness:
curl -O https://raw.github.com/jtwaleson/decrypt/f004b7eab7b949a55ea3c784fb9bac244aa0296e/decrypt.py; chmod +x decrypt.py; ls -la | ./decrypt.py
Even that might not work if he has two versions with the same hash and sends github a forced update with push -f. though that's still a much more difficult proposition than just updating the master branch.
If he can generate two files with the same hash he can do much more interesting things than write a sketchy python script that a few people might run without reading.
Hey thanks. On the page you linked to, it said "optimized for mobile" something. I have to say quite impressive--loaded very quickly. Didn't do anything after that, but I'll be damned if that first frame didn't make it down in like 2 seconds.
No, the script requires ascii input. If you use jpg2a it will take a JPG and turn it into an ASCII version of the jpg, at that point you can run it through this descrambler.
But to any of you reading this far, don't let being on windows be a deterrent. There are many excellent run-time distros out there to play around on. Google "run time Linux" for more.
And I wholeheartedly agree; it is quite fun (and rewarding) to learn.
It prints colored 0s and 1s all over your terminal window. Nothing else.
Line 20 (the 'trap sig_int_trap SIGINT') disables Ctrl-C. You want to comment this out.
It does not disable it, it catches it and restores the terminal cursor's visibility (originally it reseted everything, but you can just work on, and the colors will scroll off the screen).
... but of course, maybe you enjoy random color font. :p
Thank you for the correction.
Based on the previous comment, I assumed the trap function was doing something evil without completely reading the script.
Worked slightly differently, IIRC -- in the movie, the computer screen was already full of gibberish characters, which then randomly shifted to the correct color/character when the MacGuffin was applied.
