Well, as you can see, I put more effort into implementing the algorithm than obscuring it. I mean, I say Huffman in the title already. Sheesh...

Anyway, jynx was kind enogh to msg me with some much needed hints. Well, a conversation started on our scratchpads. With jynx's permission I'll now repost it, with each turn in a new reply. But we'll start with jynx's initial response.

---

Not to harp, but here's a few comments¹:

• Overuse of parentheses breaks up the code into bite-size chunks for others, making it easier for them to "chew"
• Explicit checks against numbers clue in the reader to an important value
• Explicit minor changes to variables make sure that everyone knows where you're coming from (e.g. $i++)
• Extraneous white space further breaks things so the reader can stop and think about a chunk
• Explicit assignment to variables gives the reader too much notice as to where things come from
• Blocks of code make obvious chunks that can be parsed seperately to slowly form a larger picture
• Clearly one can't remove all instances of the above from an obfu (or at least, not always), but reducing instances should help obfuscate the code...

Making some changes along those lines yields:

#!/usr/bin/perl

@t=("12","34","56","7 ","89",":h","er",";k","<t","=a","lc","ju","sn","
+op");
@m=split/ */,"\x00\x50\xA5\xd2\xc5\xbb\x96\xef\x06\xbc\x8e\xe0";

do{
  $n=$i++%8?$n:ord shift@m;
  $x=ord substr$t[$p],($n&128)>>7,1;
  $p=($x&240)==48?$x&15:0;
  !$p&&print chr$x;
  $n<<=1;
}until($i==91);
[download]

Notice also i took out the 'use integer' statement and the initialization of variables since they're unnecessary. Since Perl will complain about uninitialized values i also took off the -w. For testing purposes it's useful to keep such things in, but removing unnecessary things also removes extra clues for the reader :-)

Next we can take out variables that are only used once and remove instances where conditions overlap. In particular to this obfu, if $p is zero, we print. But on the previous line we just set it to zero. We can combine the two statements and use print's return value effectively here. The following is an iterative process of combining overlapping statements and reducing variables:

# 1
# collapse printing into the $p assignment

@t=("12","34","56","7 ","89",":h","er",";k","<t","=a","lc","ju","sn","
+op");
@m=split/ */,"\x00\x50\xA5\xd2\xc5\xbb\x96\xef\x06\xbc\x8e\xe0";

do{
  $n=$i++%8?$n:ord shift@m;
  $x=ord substr$t[$p],($n&128)>>7,1;
  $p=($x&240)==48?$x&15:-1+print chr$x;      
  $n<<=1;
}until($i==91);


# 2
# Collapse the $x assignment into the $p assignment
@t=("12","34","56","7 ","89",":h","er",";k","<t","=a","lc","ju","sn","
+op");
@m=split/ */,"\x00\x50\xA5\xd2\xc5\xbb\x96\xef\x06\xbc\x8e\xe0";

do{
  $n=$i++%8?$n:ord shift@m;
  $p=(($x=ord substr$t[$p],($n&128)>>7,1)&240)==48?$x&15:-1+print chr$
+x; 
  $n<<=1;
}until($i==91);


#3
# Collapse the $n assignment into the $x assignment
@t=("12","34","56","7 ","89",":h","er",";k","<t","=a","lc","ju","sn","
+op");
@m=split/ */,"\x00\x50\xA5\xd2\xc5\xbb\x96\xef\x06\xbc\x8e\xe0";

do{
  $p=(($x=ord substr$t[$p],(($n=$i++%8?$n:ord shift@m) 
  &128)>>7,1)&240)==48?$x&15:-1+print chr$x;$n<<=1; 
}until($i==91);


#4
# Remove @t and replace it with a constant list
@m=split/ */,"\x00\x50\xA5\xd2\xc5\xbb\x96\xef\x06\xbc\x8e\xe0";

do{
  $p=(($x=ord substr("12","34","56","7 ","89",":h","er",";k","<t","=a"
+,"lc","ju","sn","op")
  [$p],(($n=$i++%8?$n:ord shift@m)
  &128)>>7,1)&240)==48?$x&15:-1+print chr$x;$n<<=1;
}until($i==91);


#5
# condense the previous @t, removing quotes to save space
@m=split/ */,"\x00\x50\xA5\xd2\xc5\xbb\x96\xef\x06\xbc\x8e\xe0";

do{
  $p=(($x=ord substr+(split/,/,'12,34,56,7 ,89,:h,er,;k,<t,=a,lc,ju,sn
+,op')
  [$p],(($n=$i++%8?$n:ord shift@m)&128)>>7,1)&240)==48?
  $x&15:-1+print chr$x;$n<<=1;
}until($i==91);


#6
# Remove @m, replacing it with a constant list
# This requires a smaller variable for the 'shift' effect...
do{
  $p=(($x=ord substr+(split/,/,'12,34,56,7 ,89,:h,er,;k,<t,=a,lc,ju,sn
+,op')
  [$p],(($n=$i++%8?$n:ord
  ((split/ */,"\x00\x50\xA5\xd2\xc5\xbb\x96\xef\x06\xbc\x8e\xe0")[$.++
+])
  )&128)>>7,1)&240)==48?$x&15:-1+print chr$x;$n<<=1;  
}until($i==91);


#7
# Change all the variables to 'strict compliant' ones...
# Remove extra semi-colons and parentheses...
do{$a=(($_=ord substr+(split/,/,'12,34,56,7 ,89,:h,er,;k,<t,=a,lc,ju,s
+n,op')[
$a],(($b=$;++%8?$b:ord
((split/ */,"\x00\x50\xA5\xd2\xc5\xbb\x96\xef\x06\xbc\x8e\xe0")[$.++])
+)
&128)>>7,1)&240)==48?$_&15:-1+print chr;$b<<=1}until$;==91


#8 (final version)
# Split up the previous @m for allignment issues
do{$a=(($_=ord substr+(split/,/,'12,34,56,7 ,89,:h,er,;k,<t,=a,lc,ju,s
+n,op')[
$a],(($b=$;++%8?$b:ord((split/ */,"\x00\x50\xA5\xd2\xc5\xbb\x96\xef\x0
+6\xbc".   
"\x8e\xe0")[$.++]))&128)>>7,1)&240)==48?$_&15:-1+print chr;$b<<=1}unti
+l$;==91
[download]

It's now just a block of code with little whitespace that readers must attempt to swallow all at once. It still uses too many parentheses unfortunately, but Perl would have problems parsing correctly without them.

Anyway, that's the process i went through after running your japh. While i'm not the best at obfu, hopefully this will help a little...

nuf evah,
jynx

¹NOTE: i usually format to 60 places for monastery reasons, but sometimes, particularly in cases of obfus, i format to 80 characters, which is standard terminal width. Because of this i must appologize for the random red +'s everywhere (i've set my page preferences to wider than 60 chars to accomodate this 80 char fetish :)