Zero-Width Unicode Sanitizer
Detect, inspect, and strip invisible Unicode characters (ZWSP, ZWNJ, BOM) used by corporate intranets, forums, and whistle-blowing traps to fingerprint and track copied text.
100% Clean: No Hidden Characters Detected
This text is free from zero-width Unicode tracking characters, BOMs, or hidden steganographic bytes.
Warning: Hidden Tracking Characters Detected!
This text contains invisible zero-width Unicode characters that are visually indistinguishable from normal spaces or letters. These characters can be used as unique employee fingerprints or leak tracking markers.
| Character Name | Code Point | Detected Count | Common Exploitation Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
What Are Zero-Width Characters and How Are They Used to Track You?
Unicode includes several specialized characters that take up zero physical width on a screen. Originally created for complex typography (such as connecting Arabic ligatures or preventing hyphenation), they produce zero visual artifact when rendered in a web browser, terminal, or Word document.
Because human eyes cannot distinguish a paragraph containing 50 hidden characters from one with zero, corporate security systems, whistleblowing traps, and paywalled platforms frequently encode hidden identifiers into copied text. By mapping binary ones (1) to U+200B (Zero-Width Space) and zeros (0) to U+200C (Zero-Width Non-Joiner), each user's copy of a memo can be dynamically stamped with their employee ID or username.
Real-World Threat Scenarios:
- Corporate Leaks: Tracking which executive or employee leaked an internal memo or earnings preview to the press.
- Forum / Social Media Scrapes: Flagging bots or competitor scrapers copying proprietary documentation or knowledge bases.
- Academic Dishonesty: Detecting students who copy assignment prompts into AI generators or sharing networks.
- Code Snippet Fingerprinting: Identifying developers who copy private internal code to public GitHub repositories or Stack Overflow.
Invisible Characters Cleaned by This Tool
Acts as an invisible word break; the most common binary carrier for text steganography.
Prevents ligatures from joining adjacent characters; frequently used as bit '1'.
Forces typographic ligatures; commonly abused to encode binary payloads.
Used as a byte-order signature in UTF-16, but completely invisible when inserted into UTF-8 text.
A non-breaking invisible character designed to prevent line wrap without creating a space.
Invisible unless word is broken at line end; used to inject undetectable markers.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. The sanitizer removes only non-printing Unicode character points. All standard alphabetical letters, numerals, punctuation marks, line breaks, and regular whitespace spaces are strictly preserved.
Most common editors (like Windows Notepad, macOS TextEdit, Word, or Google Docs) do NOT render zero-width characters at all. Modern VS Code highlights some suspicious Unicode characters, but standard copy-paste operations between browser tabs and communication apps preserve them completely undetected.
Yes. Analysis is executed 100% locally inside your browser's JavaScript runtime. You can inspect the network tab in your browser developer tools: zero HTTP requests are sent when analyzing or sanitizing your text.