GitHub Repository

Obfuscate emails, phone numbers and other sensitive data using PHP and modern web features. Visible to humans, hidden from crawlers and headless bots until they interact.

5 starsPHP

Replace emails and phone numbers with <ob-fus-ca-ted>

Name: Replace emails and phone numbers with
Availability: InStock
Author: rasso

by rasso·Jul 9, 2026·2 points·0 comments

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AI Analysis

●●SolidBig BrainNiche Gem

Closed shadow roots hide data from bots that don't simulate clicks.

Strengths

•Leverages closed shadow DOM to make data invisible to non-interactive scrapers.
•Zero-config PHP package that auto-injects the revealing client script.
•Works seamlessly with dynamic frameworks like htmx and Unpoly.

Weaknesses

•Security through obscurity fails against sophisticated bots that execute JS.
•PHP-only implementation limits adoption in Node, Python, or Go stacks.

Post Description

Hey HN!

A few weeks ago I read https://spencermortensen.com/articles/email-obfuscation/.

And I was so inspired that I built my own:

https://github.com/hirasso/html-obfuscator

The "killer feature" is that it uses a closed shadow root to hide sensitive data in plain sight. Visible to humans, but invisible to crawlers and even headless bots, if the do not interact with the page.

On interaction, the data is revealed to the light DOM.

I'm looking for props, GH stars, critique... anything. I'm genuinely proud of my discovery that closed shadow roots are not readable using JavaScript.

Cheers Rasso