The British government surveillance agency GCHQ, a counterpart to the American NSA, has sparked debate online by launching an Android app that aims to encourage teenagers to tackle emerging cybersecurity threats.
The Android app, called “Cryptoy”, was developed by science, technology, engineering and mathematics students. The Cryptoy was highly appreciated and liked by GCHQ at the Cheltenham Science Festival that it was made available to the public and is now available for download.
The app is designed primarily to entice young people between the ages of 14 and 16 to test their cryptography and code-breaking skills, but can be used by anyone interested in cryptography. According to GCHQ, the Cryptoy app will help users understand basic encryption, learn about past codes and create their own encrypted messages.
The app allows users to share these encrypted messages using four decryption techniques: Shift, Substitution, Vigenere , and Enigma. The messages can be shared on social media or via email, and can then be decrypted by the recipients, with the help of the app.
One of the GCHQsaid that young people in the UK need to be encouraged to pursue fields such as mathematics and computer science.
The organization states that the Cryptoy app requires limited permissions and is not a surveillance tool – although Edward Snowden 's revelations have made users think 100 times before downloading and installing the app.
The Cryptoy app is now available for free on the Google Play Store . It is currently available for the Android platform, with an iOS version expected to be released in 2015. The app works on Google Nexus 10 & 7 tablets and has only been tested on Android versions 4.1.2 and 4.4.2 .
