Decoy Font
Obfuscation font in Privacy & security
A font that shows AI and people different text; people mostly find it fun. Critics say modern AI models often still read the hidden text.
A font that shows AI and people different text; people mostly find it fun. Critics say modern AI models often still read the hidden text.
23 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 70%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fun and cool as a project
“Is it useful? No. Does it stop AI from reading it? Also no. But is it cool? Yes, it is very cool.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font” “As a project they are kind of fun.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font” “Omg. I needed this in my life.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font” - Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font”
- Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font”
Works on some AI models
“The demonstration shows that it does stop AI”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font” “Yes, the decoy font worked”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Modern AI still reads text
“doesn't seem like a reliable way to hide text from state of the art AI models”
Comment from 18 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font” “I just gave the day dream / pay bills image to ChatGPT and Gemini pro and they both could only tell me the pay bills text”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font” “Is it useful? No. Does it stop AI from reading it? Also no. But is it cool? Yes, it is very cool.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font” - Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font”
- Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font”
Hard to read or type
“it also hides the message from myself, making it incredibly hard to type”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font” “Good job on creating a firewall for people who have poor vision.”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font” “Does it give me nausea? Yes yes yes.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font” Seems useless
“Is it useful? No. Does it stop AI from reading it? Also no. But is it cool? Yes, it is very cool.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font” “Probably useless but cool.”
Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Decoy Font”
What people said
19 of the 24 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“doesn't seem like a reliable way to hide text from state of the art AI models”
“I find this much more amusing”
“Good job on creating a firewall for people who have poor vision.”
“Yes, the decoy font worked”
“Have a reason to believe that your product constitutes plagiarism”
“Could definitely make some fun art or advertising pieces with it”
“As a project they are kind of fun.”
“Probably useless but cool.”
“Omg. I needed this in my life.”
“it may work for certain models with certain prompts, but I just asked gemini if it could see both”
“it does show two overlapping messages that can be read in different ways”
“I just gave the day dream / pay bills image to ChatGPT and Gemini pro and they both could only tell me the pay bills text”
“Does it give me nausea? Yes yes yes.”
“I asked it to look for a hidden message and it found the blurred word.”
“The demonstration shows that it does stop AI”
“it's nice until then to trick AI”
“I generated a skill.md that reads this trivially.”
“Is it useful? No. Does it stop AI from reading it? Also no. But is it cool? Yes, it is very cool.”
“it also hides the message from myself, making it incredibly hard to type”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.