David Beazley did something similar with his Superboard II computer.

http://dabeaz.blogspot.com/2010/08/using-python-to-encode-ca...

http://dabeaz.blogspot.com/2010/08/decoding-superboard-ii-ca...

http://dabeaz.blogspot.com/2010/09/using-telnet-to-access-my...

Pretty sweet hack, IMO