Ciphers · Keys · Hashes

Cryptography Explorer

Encrypt / Hash Learn Cryptography

Classical ciphers · where it all began

Caesar & Vigenère — the first two thousand years.

Type a message and watch the oldest ciphers work on it, letter by letter: Julius Caesar's single shift, the frequency-counting attack that breaks it, and the keyword cipher that resisted for three centuries. Every addition is shown with your numbers. You drive: advance one card at a time with Next — or press ▶ Play to run it start to finish.

Letters only (spaces and punctuation are dropped — the classical convention). Up to 40 letters; the key must be shorter than the message. Advance with next →| (or the → key); replay ↩ reruns a card; ← steps back; space plays/pauses.

Letters

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 classical ciphers on this page are broken by design of history: never use them to protect real secrets.