The application Cryptool is an e-learning application for Windows. You can use it to apply and analyze cryptographic algorithms. The current version of Cryptool is used all over the world. It supports both contemporary teaching methods at schools and universities as well as awareness training for employees.

The highlights of the current version are:

• Numerous classic and modern cryptographic algorithms (encryption and decryption, key generation, secure passwords, authentication, secure protocols, ...)
• Visualisation of several methods (e.g. Caesar, Enigma, RSA, Diffie-Hellman, digital signatures, AES)
• Cryptanalysis of certain algorithms (e.g. Vigenère, RSA, AES)
• Crypt-analytical measuring methods (e.g. entropy, n-grams, autocorrelation)
• Auxiliary methods (e.g. primality tests, factorisation, base64 coding)
• Tutorial about number theory
• Comprehensive online help
• Supportive script with further information about cryptology

From its original use of information security training for a company, Cryptool has developed into an outstanding open source project for cryptology related topics.

Since spring 2008, the Cryptool project has been operating the Crypto Portal for Teachers. Thus far, the portal is only available in German and is intended to act as a platform for teachers to share teaching materials about cryptology and related links.

Currently the Cryptool team is working on two future projects intended to become the successors of the current version CrypTool 1.x which has been written in C++.  Both follow-up projects use state-of-the-art standards of software development:

• Cryptool 2.0 is developed with Visual Studio 2008 (Express Edition) in C# and WPF.  In April 2008 the alpha version (for developers) has been released. This version provides a fully developed architecture and usable cryptographic functionality combined with a pathbreaking drag-and-drop GUI.
  
• JCrypTool is developed in Java and based on Eclipse RCP. The first developer version (called milestone 1) was released in August 2007, the release of the next version (called milestone 2, intended for developers and users) is planned for June 2008. JCrypTool is platform independent and works together with the FlexiProvider (a powerful toolkit for the Java Cryptography Architecture JCA) developed by the TU Darmstadt.
  

Volunteers, especially programmers and students planning to write their theses, are always welcome to join in the further development of this world-wide project.