CryptoSplainers

Or why nobody ever encrypts anything.

Whenever anyone tries to write some kind of encryption software; there's always this guy, (and it is, almost always, a guy) who decides to weigh in on the situation.

He pops up and starts talking about algorithms and bits and attacks and all kinds of stuff that for most people sounds really scary.

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: Crypto is boring. We already know how to do it, it's been boring for like 20 years and unless you're doing something massively complicated like an anonymous cryptocurrency or you just make an enormous mistake, you basically can't mess it up.

You're more likely to screw up how you communicate an error message than make a key with the wrong bits or something.

But this is not what our hero the CryptoSplainer will tell you, he's going to raise critical issues about your bits and your key derivation and AES and RSA and DSA and NSA and all kind of theoretical attacks. He might even tell you that you're killing people in Kazakhstan.

Ironically, when people write apps with no encryption, CryptoSplainers leave them alone. So most app developers do the logical thing and avoid even the mention of any bits or ciphers.

So write all the crypto! Even if there is some kind of attack on it, it's better than plaintext. And if you feel that your anatomy is somehow, smaller, than it should have been, please please don't take it out on poor app developers. Buy a truck.