blindrename.pl is a simple, citable Perl script to rename all files in a folder, and create a simple CSV file in the same folder which serves as a "key" to match the original filename to the new, randomly-generated names. This is suitable for blind analysis, such as in a laboratory setting. And it's almost certainly easier than trying to create or find an appropriate ImageJ plugin. =)

There are no prerequisites or dependencies beyond Perl itself: just download it, make sure it's executable, and run it. On Linux or BSD or Mac, you should already have Perl, and I'd recommend putting it in /usr/local/bin and chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/blindrename.pl, after which you can just type blindrename.pl foldername and it will obligingly do its thing. On Windows... well, do whatever you need to do to run a Perl script on Windows. (If you're a Windows-only person and feeling out of your depth: you can check out ActivePerl for a Windows implementations of Perl, but it may be easier to just install and use Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux.)

blindrename.pl is reasonably smart - it will test to make sure that you supply a foldername, and that the foldername exists and is a folder. It also refuses to blindrename a folder twice - if there's already a keyfile.csv present, it'll die and let you know why. It logs each rename to keyfile.csv before actually performing the operation, and will die if it can't successfully rename a file. Finally, it will refuse to run as root, won't traverse subdirectories, and won't rename dotfiles. With all that said... this is still a potentially really destructive operation. Don't run blindrename.pl on any important system folders, please... including but not limited to your own home folder!

Sample usage:

me@banshee:~/git/blindanalysis$ ls -l /tmp/test
total 24
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me    2 Oct 14 13:44 1.tif
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me    2 Oct 14 13:44 2.tif
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me    2 Oct 14 13:44 3.tif
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me    2 Oct 14 13:44 4.tif
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me    2 Oct 14 13:44 5
drwxrwxr-x 2 me me 4096 Oct 14 12:56 subdir

me@banshee:~/git/blindanalysis$ ./blindrename.pl /tmp/test
Renaming: 1.tif... 2.tif... 3.tif... 4.tif... 5... 
5 files successfully blind renamed; keyfile saved to /tmp/test/keyfile.csv.

me@banshee:~/git/blindanalysis$ ls -l /tmp/test
total 28
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me    2 Oct 14 13:44 B4LOz.tif
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me    2 Oct 14 13:44 Ek76e.tif
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me    2 Oct 14 13:44 kdVFM.tif
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me  131 Oct 14 14:02 keyfile.csv
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me    2 Oct 14 13:44 Oklr1
drwxrwxr-x 2 me me 4096 Oct 14 12:56 subdir
-rw-rw-r-- 1 me me    2 Oct 14 13:44 wsy7e.tif

me@banshee:~/git/blindanalysis$ cat /tmp/test/keyfile.csv
"Original Filename","Cloaked Filename"
"1.tif","kdVFM.tif"
"2.tif","Ek76e.tif"
"3.tif","B4LOz.tif"
"4.tif","wsy7e.tif"
"5","Oklr1"