There’s a lot of talk about encryption in the IT scene but how many people who aren’t in the industry actually know how the technology works? Mozilla wants to raise the awareness of encryption in the minds of the general public with Codemoji, an online game that teaches players about ciphers with emoji. That’s so fetch! Here’s how you can play the game.
Image: Screenshot from Codemoji website
Codemoji is a simple game that uses ciphers, algorithms for encryption and decryption, to convert short messages into emoji, using a unique formula to scramble a message. You can then sent that message to a friend for them to decipher.
Mozilla didn’t just make this game for shits and giggles; there is a very good reason why the company, that is famous for its Firefox browser, created the Codemoji learning too,. According to Mozilla executive director Mark Surman:
When more people understand how encryption works and why it’s important to them, more people can stand up for encryption when it matters most. This is crucial: Currently, encryption is being threatened around the world. From France to Australia to the UK, governments are proposing policies that would harm user security by weakening encryption. And in the U.S., the FBI recently asked Apple to undermine the security of its own products.”
We already have real world examples of what can come out of ignorance (*coughBrexitcough*) and government agencies around the world are waging a war on encryption that could compromise our privacy, a fundamental human right. Encryption is also a useful tool in protecting the security of our valuable stored data.
You can play Codemiji here.
If you want to know more about encryption but you’re not very tech savvy, here’s one of our previous articles that can help you out.
[Via Mozilla Blog]
Comments
2 responses to “Mozilla Teaches You Encryption Basics With Fun Emoji Game (Yes, Really)”
That does not teach you anything about how encryption works.
It just lets you encrypt something…it doesn’t explain anything about how encryption is done.
It does teach you how very very very basic encryption works (letter shifting).
This is just a version of that where the substitution is controlled by a seed (the emoji you selected). Even without letters, you could probably work out the original message based on symbol frequency (as long as the message was long enough)