Inspiration
When we got the prompt of data security, we immediately thought of the data security unit we had done in Computer Science Principles. We learned the general concept of encryption algorithms and what they do in our class, but we never learned how specifically to implement an encryption algorithm. Additionally, some people want to be able to send things on their phone that no one will ever be able to access in order to have privacy. Without our innovation, it is possible for someone to take your phone if it is unlocked and simply read your messages, or to hack into your email. This can be a problem so we created a solution using the knowledge we had learned in Computer Science Principles.
What it does
Our innovation will let you use asymmetric RSA encryption to encrypt your text/email messages in a very similar way to how servers encrypt their communication with clients. Users only need to go to our website and obtain a public and private key to begin to send encrypted messages.
How we built it
We built this website using HTML, CSS, Javascript, and jQuery. We implemented the algorithm by ourselves without the use of outside code or libraries. Some of our group members watched several videos and read several articles in order to understand exactly how RSA encryption worked, and then they implemented the algorithm in Python, then the member of our group that was knowledgable with Javascript translated the Python into Javascript.
Challenges we ran into
We ran into problems when implementing the algorithm in Javascript while being very low on sleep. Several syntax errors were missed, and some took us a long time to find. Additionally, only one member of our group had ever developed with Javascript before, so there was a bit of a learning curve for the rest of our members as our project used a lot of Javascript.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of creating a working product that could potentially be useful for people without any prior knowledge of what RSA is.
What we learned
We learned a lot about how Javascript works, as well as about RSA encryption, and about how to collaborate under pressure to finish a project.
What's next for MessageEncryptor
MessageEncryptor could use a better UI, a better explanation of how it works for new users, and better cross-platform compatibility.
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