A font to discourage NSA snooping.

• Author: Mangu-Ward, Katherine
• Position: Artifact - ZXX font - Brief article

THE ZXX FONT is designed to be difficult for machines to read. Former National Security Agency contractor Sang Mun created the font as a response to increasing government incursions on privacy. "I have become dedicated to researching ways to 'articulate our unfreedom' and to continue the evolution of my own thinking about censorship, surveillance, and a free society," he explained after releasing the font online in June.

Several different techniques are used to baffle digital scanners, including camouflage patterns drawn from nature, crowding the letters with digital noise, and simply crossing out each letter. The font is named after the Library of Congress code zxx, which labels a document as containing "no linguistic content." The goal...