idForURL = URI.escape((Base64.encode64(hash).strip))

require 'digest/sha1'
print Digest::SHA1.hexdigest("Let's see how long this gets.")
=> b26316a2db52609f86b540de65282b9d367e085c

# app/models/secret.rb; this would go in the model you want to obfuscate
  class Secret < ActiveRecord::Base
    has_friendly_id :code, :use_slug => true

    validates :name, :uniqueness => true

    def code
       Digest::SHA1.hexdigest self.name
    end
  end