Depix

Depix is a proof-of-concept tool that recovers plaintext from pixelized screenshots by matching pixelized blocks against a De Bruijn sequence lookup table generated from known font renderings. Rather than using traditional OCR or image enhancement, it exploits the deterministic nature of linear box filter pixelization to reverse the process and reconstruct the original text. Digital forensics analysts and CTF participants use Depix to recover redacted text from screenshots where pixelization was used as the censoring method, demonstrating that pixel-based redaction is not a secure way to protect sensitive information. The tool works best with screenshots that used a consistent pixelization block size and standard fonts, serving as both a practical forensic utility and an educational demonstration of why pixelization should never be relied upon for censoring sensitive text.