Friday, December 24, 2021

CrypTool 2 Release 2021.2 released

---

In December 2021 we released "CrypTool 2 – 2021.2", the second release this year. The last CrypTool 2 release was published in May 2021.

Probably the most interesting new implementation of CrypTool 2 is the blockchain simulation. With the blockchain component and its templates, you can simulate a blockchain. The blockchain simulation allows you to create blocks, transactions, addresses and corresponding digital signatures.

Also worth mentioning is the official CrypTool 2 YouTube channel "Cryptography for Everybody", which in December 2021 already had 3100 subscribers. Thank you at this point! For everyone who has not yet seen the channel: We discuss and explain cryptological topics and show many examples with CrypTool 2 and the other CrypTool implementations of the project (see Cryptography for Everybody).

Finally there was a (German) article about CrypTool 2 in heise online and in Europe's largest IT magazine, the c't.

• Moderne-Kryptografie-ausprobieren-und-verstehen-mit-CrypTool-2
• Krypto ganz unkryptisch – Mit CrypTool 2 moderne Kryptografie ausprobieren und verstehen

We would like to thank the many users who have sent us feedback, requests, praise and criticism. We hope you enjoy using CT2 as much as we did creating it!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2022! Stay healthy!

Sincerely, The CrypTool 2 development team, December 2021

Changelog summary

Architectural changes

• We moved the source code of CrypTool 2 from SVN to GitHub
• We have updated our build server accordingly

Core components

WorkspaceManager (WSM):

• We fixed bugs in the WorkspaceManager. This improves the overall performance

Startcenter:

• The user is now asked whether he really wants to delete the history of the last opened workspaces before the actual deletion process is carried out

Components

We have added new components to CrypTool 2:

• Blockchain simulation (supports: blocks, transactions, signatures and mining)
• PBKDF 1 and 2
• Bacon cipher
• Josse cipher and Josse cipher analyzer
• Chaocipher
• T9 code
• Straddling checkerboard cipher

Modification of the existing components:

• We removed the smart card component because it was faulty and had never been used by anyone
• We fixed some bugs in existing components

Templates

• We have added a template for Gematria
• We have added a template that simulates a numbers station
• We have revised many templates so that they look "nicer"
• We have corrected a lot of typing errors :-)

... and many other small bug fixes, improvements etc.