ZOSCII COIN Key Encoder / Verifier

Security Best Practices for ZOSCII COIN Key Encoder

Understanding ZOSCII

Securing data digitally is about encoding the data. Below is a simplified explanation of how ZOSCII differs from other approaches.

Encryption vs ZOSCII Encoding

Encryption transforms your data using complex mathematical algorithms and encryption keys into a secured file. It's like putting your valuables into a SAFE - only you know the combination. While strong encryptions would take an eternity to crack with today's computers, technological breakthroughs could potentially decrypt files much faster. Importantly: your original data, whether accessible or not, is contained within that encrypted file.

ASCII Encoding represents characters (alphabet 'A'-'Z', numbers '0'-'9', etc.) using standardized codes. When you store an 'A', you're actually storing an ASCII value that points to the letter 'A' in your computer's character table - the actual letter isn't stored, just a reference to it.

ZOSCII is loosely based on ASCII but uses direct memory addresses instead of lookup tables. Rather than storing offsets to characters in an ASCII table like ASCII encoding, ZOSCII stores direct addresses to find the required data. ZOSCII is NOT encryption - it's a form of encoding that provides security through obscurity and plausible deniability rather than mathematical complexity.

How ZOSCII Encoding Works:

1. ROM Files: You create or obtain a "ROM file" - any binary file (could be a photo, music, executable, etc.) that contains diverse byte values
2. Address Mapping: For each byte value (0-255) in your data, the ZOSCII encoder finds all occurrences of that value within your ROM file and records their addresses
3. Non-Discriminatory Selection: When encoding the ASCII letter 'A' (value 65), the ZOSCII encoder finds every occurrence of byte value 65 in the ROM. A typical 64KB ROM contains ~255 occurrences of each byte value. But which occurrence should we use? Well, any are fine - in fact, why should we discriminate? Let's pull one occurrence out of a hat and use that!
4. Random for Everything: ZOSCII does this non-discriminatory random selection for every byte (0-255) in your input data
5. Address File Output: The result is an "address file" - a list of memory addresses that, when used with your ROM, recreates your original data

ZOSCII's Unique Security Properties

The revolutionary aspect: because ZOSCII refuses to discriminate between multiple possible addresses for each byte, the same data can be encoded millions of different ways. This non-discriminatory approach means address sequences #0001, #0002, #0003, #0004 could represent "Hello", "BINGO", "Apple", "AAAAA", "BBBBB", music data, image data - mathematically, almost any encoding can decode to almost anything you want.

Perfect Deniability: There are no clues, markers, or patterns in an address file to indicate what the original data was or even that it is a ZOSCII file at all. Without the ROM file, the address file is meaningless random numbers.

What is Entropy?

Entropy measures randomness and unpredictability in data. High entropy means data appears random with no obvious patterns. Low entropy data (like text files) has predictable patterns that can be exploited. For ZOSCII:

• High Entropy ROM: Binary files, executables, images, compressed files - provide maximum security
• Low Entropy ROM: Text files, repeated data - reduce security and provide fewer encoding options
• Balanced Distribution: Best ROMs contain roughly equal amounts of each byte value (0-255)

Network Security

• Run Offline Only: Disconnect from the internet before using this tool with real wallet keys
• Local Files Only: Keep all ROM files on local storage - never upload ROMs to cloud services. Even if you believe the files are secure online, take added precautions relating to other things that can happen online - for example, if you used an image from a website as a ROM, they might one day change it, or reencoded it, or even if it looks the same, change it's format - making the ROM file now incompatible with your ZOSCII file

File Handling

• Secure Deletion: Use secure delete tools (not regular delete) for temporary files
• Test First: Always verify successful decoding first
• Keep Originals Safe: Never delete original data until you've verified successful decoding

Wallet Key Protection

• Never Share ROMs: Your ROM files are unique - sharing them compromises all your encoded keys
• Encoded Key Storage: Address files can be stored anywhere (even online) if your ROM has sufficient entropy
• ZOSCII Storage: You can store ZOSCII files inside ZOSCII - each layer you do that adds another layer of 100% security, however you must keep your ROM files accessible somewhere.
• Clean Browser: Clear browser cache and temporary files after use
• Private Environment: Use this tool on a trusted, private computer only
• Verify Downloads: Only download this tool from official GitHub repository

ROM Quality and Storage Guidelines

• High Entropy: Use binary files with diverse byte distributions - executables, images, compressed files
• Sufficient Size: Larger ROM files provide better security (minimum 64KB recommended). This tool uses the first 64KB of any ROM file - larger files are fine, but only the first 64KB will be used for encoding.
• Unknown Content: ROMs with unpredictable content offer maximum security
• Hide in Plain Sight: Disguise ROMs as innocent files - family photos, music files, documents, game files
• Multiple Hidden Copies: Store disguised copies in different locations (USB drives, cloud storage, email attachments to yourself)
• Social Media: Do NOT trust ROMs you uploaded as photos or videos (the platform may compress them or remove them)
• Version Control: Keep track of which ROM version was used for each encoding (subtle filename variations)

Quick Security Checklist

In the Official GitHub Repository

• Source Code: Assembly Language, C, JavaScript, PHP, Python
• Larger ROM Capacities: Most tools provide optional 32-bit addressing, with easy expansion to 64-bit, 128-bit or higher if ever required
• 8-bit Computer Support: Tools and source code available for encoding and decoding ZOSCII on vintage systems