Cryptographic Fundamentals for Digital Safety Trainers

Announcing a new set of curricula for Level Up, aimed at trainers themselves, with lessons on asymmetric encryption, entropy, and hashes. So much of the actual practice of cybersecurity and digital safety training is rushed. Trainers work to get across a mix of critically important, complex concepts, while leaving enough time for enough engagement and hands-on time to have it sink in just a bit. This means we as trainers often rely on trust and rough high-level explanations of the core concepts underpinning the training topics, be that password hygiene, using tools like Signal or PGP, or verifying downloaded files. There is eternally too much to cover, too much at stake, and too little time. This core problem is why so many trainer support curricula, tools, and guides exist out there, from the best practice and core curricula shared in Level Up, to the more tactical and hands on resources in the Security Education Companion. One thing I’ve always found missing in these resources,…