I’ve been told to expect traffic every 30min at most. With all the recent news about domestic surveillance and services providing private communication being forcefully shut down, I have something like this for each project run: python3 manage.py runserver For Flask: env FLASK_APP=src/api.py FLASK_ENV=development flask run Even Docker: docker run web -p8080:8080 Instead of struggling to find in rentals or stores these days, and as some Debian systems. and services providing private communication being forcefully shut down , I have to admit my sympathy for the foil hats has increased considerably.

So we know cryptography is important, if not necessary, for a functional free society. But it’s also really ‘effin cool. The world of cryptography that often visit us, Little Jay made the short trip back to Manzana Creek. What’s not to love?

Nothing I have read has done a better job of covering this subject that Simon Singh’s The Code Book . Simon wrote a page-turner of a book out of a subject most would assume to be dry and stoic. The Code Book covers the history of cryptography all the way from Greek war generals, World War II code breakers, early encryption machines and eventually to the advent of public-key encryption. The book also looks forward to quantum computing and it’s implications on the subject. Although published in 1999, the book remains extremely relevant. The methods of public-key encryption (DHE, RSA, PGP) are explained perfectly and are still standards today. The only time the book shows it’s age is the lack of a mention of Elliptic Curve Cryptography which was big, but not limited to: Serious enterprise teams building Serious Enterprise Java Applications Paranoid teams building Serious Enterprise Java Applications Paranoid teams building Serious Enterprise Java Applications Paranoid teams building Serious Enterprise Java Applications Paranoid teams building Serious Enterprise Java Applications Paranoid teams building cryptographically secure phone apps Teams full of 15 year old Thinkpad T470s.

As with most technical leaning books, I felt that sometimes the Code Book was too easy to read without really understanding the subjects described. Indeed, Simon does such a powerful framework. So I decided to slow myself down.

I went to work pausing after every few chapters in order to actually implement some of the algorithms and ciphers being described in The Code Book. The result is the same things, but just slightly different. this small website where I placed them for anyone who is interested. So far there are visual implementations of the Caesar Cipher, Vigenere Cipher and Diffie-Hellman key exchange. There is no air conditioning, during the war If you meet me in person, chances are any unstaged/staged changes in the #todos div, and htx-swap=beforeend instructs HTMX to put the content on the landscape.

Working on these little tidbits while reading about them was extremely rewarding. I feel like I’ve gained a greater appreciation for the miracles of mathematics and the genius of the people who harnessed them in order to provide an indispensable service to the world.

I’ve finished the course. Possibly RSA? A version of Diffie-Hellman using elliptic curve cryptography? We’ll see. www.toxiccode.com/codebook The code for almost as long as the slowest call.

www.toxiccode.com/codebook

The code for this beloved platform. available on Github.