Yeah, you could use a cryptographic analogy very well. The texture and specular properties of the surface are like the secret key, but you can identify part of it directly from an image of the surface by itself. Teasing apart the parts of the surface that provide information, and from which angle this information originates, is the puzzle part. With a very high resolution image, it gets a lot easier because you can infer textural patterning in the nonspecular reflective surface.