"There's a fathomless chasm between cryptographers and developers."

There's a fathomless chasm between cryptographers and developers. One of the many things we'd like to do is help mitigate the effects (solve, ideally) of one of the costliest problems that practical cryptography faces: cryptographic incompetence. Making sure developers better realize the security that cryptography is built to provide, through clean, minimalist design - this is what Extorque was built to do.

Whenever cryptography fails, in practice, it's usually not the cryptography's fault. The cryptography is rendered ineffective, thanks to flukes in the implementation. There is a plethora of reasons why this happens. Be it lax policies, excessive complexities, or sheer ignorance, it happens far too often for comfort. Sadly enough, it won't get any better, until we're more attentive to the fact that there's a dire need for education in securely and correctly implementing cryptography.

The reality is that cryptography fills some mighty big shoes, yet a great many of those responsible for implementing it are non-cryptographers, and know next to nothing about the field. They can't even identify what they need, let alone properly implement it. Tackling this is a perpetual challenge, with a goal that is not only worth it, but vital. The design of cryptography has a decorated track record; it's time for the implementation of cryptography to follow suit.

Educating developers is a solid effort in mitigating the potential hazards of implementing cryptography, but it's far from a panacea; if anything, it's a small, but worthwhile, piece of weaponry in this "war on incompetence" (don't mind the parallel of political satire). Cryptography isn't paint-by-numbers simple; it can be downright difficult. Without any further ado, we give you the exhortation of our careers: Don't do cryptography without a cryptographer on board!