Ciphers · Keys · Hashes

Cryptography Explorer
Encrypt / Hash Learn Cryptography

Public-key encryption · Rivest–Shamir–Adleman

RSA — build the keys, lock the message.

Pick two primes (or let us pick), and watch a real key pair get built: the modulus, the totient, the public exponent, and the private exponent hunted down by the extended Euclidean algorithm — then watch your message get locked by one key and opened by the other. You drive: advance one card at a time with Next — or press ▶ Play to run it start to finish, slowed down, with a speed control.

Up to 24 characters. Primes are kept tiny (50–250) on purpose so every number stays readable — real RSA does identical math with primes hundreds of digits long. Advance with next →| (or the → key): it finishes the current card’s animation, then moves on. replay ↩ reruns a card; ← steps back; space plays/pauses.

Primes

About this project

Hey—we're Sean and Derek.

Cryptography Explorer is meant to make the invisible visible: the encryption and hashing algorithms you trust every day, run live on your own input, slowed down far enough to actually understand.

It grew out of two terminal animations we used as teaching aids — Greg Walker's wonderful SHA-256 Animation (MIT licensed) and a companion RSA animation built in its spirit by AG1 Derek Conklin. The web gave us room those terminals never had: richer explanations at every step, a scrubbable timeline, and animations you can rewind.

Creators LT Sean Egan, PhD & AG1 Derek Conklin

United States Navy · A partnership building learning tools for our METOC, space, cyber, and cryptologic colleagues.

sean@theinformed.org

Independent educational project, built by us on our own time. The views expressed here are ours alone and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Navy, the Department of War / Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government, nor do we represent them. This site is intended for learning, not operations — do not use it for operational decisions; use it at your own risk. The algorithms here use deliberately tiny numbers and simplified (unpadded) constructions so every value stays readable. They are teaching toys: never use them to protect real secrets.