Disguises that survive a second look

A list of twelve bare numbers looks like what it is. This page works five disguises with the public example and shows where each one breaks.

The example

The public example phrase in the 8 January 1784 cipher:

pizza educate fat kiss domain venue kingdom raise split step copper time (this phrase is public: never use it for real funds)

encodes to 5432 6201 6211 6173 6965 6879 6853 7318 7226 7389 7213 7280. Every example below hides those twelve numbers, in order. Don't reuse these examples for your own seed; use your own cipher and your own cover.

What a second look catches

Someone searching your papers, a burglar or an officer at a border, doesn't decode anything. They look for something that doesn't fit. These are the tells for this method:

1. The count: exactly 12 or 24 items, or a page that's oddly short.
2. The band: every number in every cipher falls between 5432 and 7479. Twelve four-digit numbers that all start with 5, 6 or 7 are a pattern, and anyone who knows this site knows that band.
3. Inconsistency: a total that doesn't add up, an odometer that goes backwards, a recipe where the salt weighs as much as the flour.
4. Placement: a "receipt" folded inside the hardware wallet's box, or alone in a safe.
5. Freshness: neat handwriting on a form that should be printed, a five-year-old receipt on new paper.

A good disguise survives all five. It gives a reason for there to be 12 or 24 lines, puts numbers in the 5432 to 7479 band where they'd be normal anyway, adds up, and lives among similar papers.

1. The receipt

The obvious version puts each number in as a price: $54.32, $62.01, $62.11 and so on.

Twelve items all priced between $54 and $75 is odd for any shop. The total has to match, which tempts you to leave it off.

Instead, hide the number in a measurement or a quantity and let the price be whatever it is. Your rule: the first number on each line, decimal point ignored.

Item	Size	Price
PVC pipe	54.32 cm	$6.19
Chain, galv.	620.1 cm	$41.00
Tube, copper	621.1 mm	$18.75
Cable	6.173 m	$9.40

Print the total. Keep it with other receipts from the same project.

2. Part numbers

Part and catalogue numbers are arbitrary by nature, so a four-digit core inside one looks normal.

Bin	Part	Qty
A3	HX-5432-ZP	40
A3	HX-6201-ZP	25
A4	WS-6211-SS	100
B1	WS-6173-SS	60

It breaks when every part comes from one vendor in one narrow number range, all with the same suffix, on exactly twelve lines. Real stock sheets are messy.

To make it hold, vary the prefixes and suffixes, add a few extra lines with numbers outside the band (your rule ignores anything below 5432 or above 7479), and keep the sheet in a binder of real ones. This is the strongest of the five.

3. The odometer log

A fuel or mileage log is ordinary paper in a car. The naive version writes the numbers as odometer readings: 5,432, then 6,201, 6,211, then 6,173.

An odometer never goes backwards. The fourth line is lower than the third, and the log is dead on the first close look.

Put the number in the trip distance, in tenths of a mile, and keep the odometer column honest by adding each trip to it.

Date	Odometer	Trip (mi)
3 Mar	48,753.2	543.2
17 Mar	49,373.3	620.1
2 Apr	49,994.4	621.1
19 Apr	50,611.7	617.3

Trips of 540 to 750 miles suit a long commute or a sales territory.

4. Recipe weights

The naive version is one recipe with twelve ingredients: flour 5,432 g, water 6,201 g, salt 6,211 g.

Salt at 6 kg gives it away. In any one recipe the ingredients differ by orders of magnitude. Twelve amounts that weigh about the same are the band showing through.

Track one ingredient over twelve days instead. A bakery production log that records flour used per day can run between 5.4 and 7.5 kg without anyone blinking.

Day	Flour (g)	Loaves
Mon	5,432	32
Tue	6,201	37
Wed	6,211	37
Thu	6,173	36

Keep the loaf count consistent with the flour, roughly 170 g a loaf here.

5. Sports scores

Split each number into two scores: 54-32, 62-01, 62-11, 61-73.

62 to 1 is not a basketball score, and 72-13 (from 7213) is a rout nobody keeps a record of. In the example, two of the twelve lines fail on sight. One impossible line is enough to make someone look at the other eleven.

For this example, nothing simple holds. The lesson is to test every line, not the first three. If a format can't carry all twelve of your numbers believably, pick another format. Score sheets suit seeds whose numbers happen to split well, and you don't choose your numbers.

Rules for any disguise

1. Write the rule down nowhere. "First number on each line, ignore anything outside the band" lives in your head and in your inheritance letter.
2. Check all 12 or 24 lines against the five tells above.
3. Make it boring. The best disguise is one nobody reads.
4. Put the passphrase somewhere else. If the disguise fails, the passphrase is what's left between the finder and your coins (the 25th word).
5. Recover from the disguise once before you trust it: decode it with your cipher, enter the words and passphrase into your signer, and compare the wallet fingerprint.

We will never ask for a seed word or a passphrase. Never type one into this site or any tool it links to.