Don Park's Daily Habit - Identicon: Third-Party Implementations

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Identicon: Third-Party Implementations

by Don Park at 2007/01/20 15:21:50

Third-party implementations and variations of Identicon are starting to appear. I'll add to this post as they appear.

ScottS-M now has a WordPress plugin port with extra shapes.
Charles Darke has implemented a variation called Visiglyph using PHP.
Andi at Splitbrain has a Combinatoric Critters version called MonsterID
ScottS-M wrote WP_MonsterID, a Wordpress Plugin version of MonsterID.
FriedCellCollective has a MonsterID web service.
Jeff Atwood and Jon Galloway with help from Phil Haack has a .NET 2.0 port!
Jon has details of the porting process using JCLA.
Daniel has a C# version that returns bitmaps.
Didier is implementing a python version.
Kai Carver has a Perl version which he is using on visualizing sentences.
Sean Kearney has a Community Server add-on version of Jeff/Jon's .NET code.

If you have an implementation or a variation of identicon, comment to this post to get added to this list.

To encourage others, I've just uploaded Identicon version 0.2 source code which has following changes:

1. Cleaned up and refactored to remove unnecessary crap and simplified flow for improved readability.

2. Documented. I am still not happy with the level of documentation but at least it's getting better.

3. Description of how identicon is rendered from a previous post is included in doc folder.

4. Fixed a color-related bug. This means your identicon color will be slightly different.

5. IdenticonCache interface added to allow caching identicons. IdenticonServlet will check the cache if the full class name is provided using 'cacheProvider' init-parameter.

6. Runtime jar file (com.docuverse.identicon.jar) is included.

Enjoy.

PS: Until I fix the dang CSS bug caused by indented blocks, you'll see some odd layout problems.

Tags: tech, security, identity, identicon

Comments

Jeff Atwood at 2007/01/20 04:51:57 PM

Cool-- I need someone do do a .NET port!

Don Park at 2007/01/20 05:06:54 PM

Oh, yes. .NET and Java is similar enough that a smart fella like you should be able to do the port while waiting for dinner. ;-p

Wes Felter at 2007/01/20 10:07:40 PM

Have you considered using the canvas tag to draw identicons in the browser? The server-side generation could be a fallback.

Don Park at 2007/01/21 07:49:21 AM

Hi Wes. Yes, I've thought about doing it with dojo toolkit as well as Flash but went with java because a) it was most handy for me and b) I wanted others to participate in the fun.

Are you volunteering to do the js version? :-)

dda at 2007/01/21 09:38:05 AM

I had been thinking of JS, using the canvas attribute. What the heck, it's Sunday, I'll go flexing my DOM skills...

Don Park at 2007/01/21 10:32:35 AM

You might want to hold off, dda. Wes' comment and a nice cup of coffee prompted me to write a js/canvas version. I am almost done with it (a random MBP lockup stopped me in the middle of the patch rendering code, fugger...). Once I am done, you can run with it since I am planning to do just the rendering part. Server-end will still have to convert IP address to identicode as well as throw in fallback img tag (minding Safari canvas pitfalls) which can point to Docuverse identicon URL.

Don Park at 2007/01/21 10:36:35 AM

Oops. I just realized you can't use Docuverse identicon URL for fallback image since your salt and identicon code algorithm will be different from mine. Another case of protection becoming a hindrance.

dda at 2007/01/21 12:21:21 PM

ah well, okay. Still had fun with the canvas object inbetween... :-)

Don Park at 2007/01/21 12:41:31 PM

It's done. Frankly, it comes out looking rather fuzzy looking at small size because it's being rendered anti-aliased at target size which accumulated anti-aliasing artifacts.

I'll post the link to the javascript source file. It's pretty simple to use.

Jeff Atwood at 2007/01/21 10:56:30 PM

I'm almost as smart as Don thinks I am.

Here's the .NET 2.0 implementation:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000774.html

(but I had help from my friends. Thanks Jon Galloway and Phil Haack!)

dda at 2007/01/22 03:18:48 PM

I have a Python implementation brewing, using the PIL, but somehow the results I get don't match what I get with my own IP here... Time for a bug fix I guess...

Don Park at 2007/01/22 04:15:55 PM

dda, sounds great. BTW, there is no need to match the hash algorithm exactly nor is there a need to use the same bitfield pattern to render the parts.

Kai Carver at 2007/01/25 12:19:34 AM

I did a Perl version:
http://kai.dyndns.org/cgi/identicon.pl

Because I wanted to see as many of the lovely icons as possible, I also offer the possibliity of translating any text to "Identiconese", and I'm slowly learning the language :-)

Congratulations on a great and very well-designed idea.

Vittorio at 2007/02/09 08:59:16 AM

I don't like mine!!

Rainer Bauer at 2007/04/30 04:56:24 PM

Hi Don,

I have coded a enhanced 2-color identicon version for Win32.

Munnin uses them to identify eBay sellers in the item listings - it works great!

Implementation details can be found here:
http://www.munnin.com/en/program_identicon.php

Rainer

dermy at 2007/05/20 08:23:18 AM

http://sexy-frauen.bumst.at/

Ben at 2007/05/22 10:47:17 PM

I'm insane, so I wrote my own PHP implementation. Since apparently they all need snazzy names, I'm going with "ycons", and I'm trying desperately to think of how I can use them in a web game, but can't come up with anything that isn't completely superfluous >_> They seem like they'd make cool guild emblems, or something, but I dunno.

Anyway, here's a "quilt" of a bunch of ycons. It's a little scary.
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/55930031/

And here's my sample page, which is very boring and not very helpful, and probably makes my server cry a little on the inside... source is there, at least :)
http://www.evilissexy.com/ycon/ycon_example_mini.php

Ben at 2007/05/22 10:49:12 PM

oh, did the spam filter hate me?

arti at 2007/08/21 08:58:20 AM

http://www.fickennacktsex.com/

hutu at 2007/09/10 04:33:52 PM

http://www.geilestars.com/

girls at 2007/10/30 10:31:02 AM

http://kkkk.bumst.at/

Arnaud PICHERY at 2007/11/22 05:02:55 PM

I have ported Identicon to Flex 2.0.
You can find a demo application (right-click to view and download sources) at
http://coderpeon.ovh.org/data/2007/11/FlexIdenticons-1.0/FlexIdenticons.html