The Matasano Crypto Challenges - or Cryptopals, to give them their much kinder, Saturday morning cartoon name - are a series of coding challenges, made by Matasano Security (now a part of NCC group). They challenge you to think about cryptography, security, and teach you the motions of how to encrypt, decrypt, and attack.

It’s not wildly complex, it’s not a set of logic systems above everything you already know if you can put together FizzBuzz. As an apprentice, a key part of my job is to learn - Cryptopals, regardless of your own expertise, is one of the most rewarding ways to learn Ruby, to learn logic, and to learn how all the encryption you rely on works.

Hannah Dwan is a developer at Happy Bear Software! She used to be a games journalist, but abandoned the glitz and glamour of esports in favour of pull requests and documentation.