March 28, 2026
From math class to meme fest
RSA and Python
Simple RSA demo sparks cheers, side‑eye, and “newspaper cryptogram” jokes
TLDR: A bite‑size Python RSA tutorial used tiny numbers and per‑letter encryption, sparking praise for clarity and heat for being “basically a cryptogram.” Commenters split between teaching simplicity and real‑world safety, while others pointed to big‑number math hurdles and Java’s BigInteger as the grown‑up path.
A breezy Python walkthrough of RSA lit up the comments—not for the math, but for the drama. The tutorial keeps it simple with tiny prime numbers and skips safety add‑ons, which made some readers clap for clarity and others clutch their pearls. One fan cheered that once you “get” RSA, it sticks. But the loudest chorus? Critics warning that encrypting each character like this turns the whole thing into a predictable puzzle. As one commenter roasted, both “l”s in “hello” become the same code—cue the “it’s a newspaper cryptogram” dunk.
Tech die‑hards piled on with performance reality checks, noting that real RSA needs giant numbers and fast math to crunch them. That sparked a side‑quest about hardware tricks and serious big‑number algorithms, plus a detour to Java’s BigInteger love letter to RSA. Meanwhile, a dev teaching crypto in a beginner language admitted they don’t even have big numbers yet—relatable, chaotic energy.
The vibe: team “teachable toy” vs team “don’t teach crypto wrong.” Supporters say the snack‑size demo is great for beginners; skeptics argue it misleads by skipping real‑world essentials like padding (randomness) and bigger keys. The memes write themselves: math class meets mystery puzzle, with Python in the middle and the crowd debating whether it’s cute or careless.
Key Points
- •RSA is presented as an asymmetric cryptographic system using a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption.
- •The tutorial uses small primes for demonstration and explicitly omits padding and other security measures.
- •Example primes chosen are p = 61 and q = 97, giving n = 5917 and φ(n) = 5760.
- •A public exponent e is selected to be coprime with φ(n); the example uses e = 47.
- •The private exponent d satisfies e·d mod φ(n) = 1; the example yields d = 1103, forming the key pair.