crypto-lab-world-ciphers

What It Is

World Ciphers demonstrates four national symmetric block ciphers: Camellia-256 (Japan, NTT/Mitsubishi, 2000), ARIA-256 (South Korea, NSRI, 2003), SM4 (China, OSCCA, 2006), and Kuznyechik (Russia, FSB, 2015). All four share AES's 128-bit block size, but each was designed independently as a sovereign cryptographic standard for government and regulatory use. Only Camellia and SM4 are in ISO/IEC 18033-3 (SM4 via Amendment 1:2021); ARIA is standardized in KS X 1213 and RFC 5794 but not in 18033-3, and the amendment that would have added Kuznyechik was withdrawn over its S-box design concerns. The security model is symmetric block cipher: the same key encrypts and decrypts, with security grounded in the computational hardness of inverting the cipher without the key.

When to Use It

Camellia-256: AES-equivalent alternative with full design transparency, TLS support, and CRYPTREC endorsement — the strongest general-purpose pick from this group.
ARIA-256: Required for Korean government and financial system compliance.
SM4: Required for products operating in Chinese markets under Chinese law.
Kuznyechik: Required for Russian GOST R 34.12-2015 compliance only.
Do not use SM4 alone for long-term data — its 128-bit key gives roughly 64-bit post-quantum security, below NIST's recommended 128-bit post-quantum threshold.
Do not use Kuznyechik outside of Russian compliance requirements — S-box design transparency concerns are unresolved.
None of these replace AES-256-GCM as a general-purpose default.
Do NOT treat this as a production crypto library — it is a teaching demo that implements these ciphers to compare them, not a hardened deployment.

Live Demo

systemslibrarian.github.io/crypto-lab-world-ciphers

All cipher outputs are real operations — no simulation. To prove it, the page opens with a live known-answer test (KAT) that encrypts each cipher's official vector (RFC 3713, RFC 5794, GB/T 32907-2016, GOST R 34.12-2015) in your browser and checks it byte-for-byte against the published ciphertext. The same vectors gate npm test.

The demo now opens with a Start Here vocabulary panel that defines block, key, round, S-box, SPN, Feistel, involution, and diffusion layer in one plain sentence each, and every jargon term in the exhibits links back to it. Exhibits are:

Verified — the live KAT panel described above, with a pass count and a re-run button.
Camellia-256 — interactive encrypt/decrypt with AES-256-CBC side by side, plus a stated takeaway: different ciphertext for identical inputs means the two parties must agree on the algorithm to interoperate, and "different-looking output" is not evidence of more security.
ARIA-256 — shows where ARIA's involution actually lives (the diffusion layer, not the S-boxes), with involution defined plainly up front and an animated 16×16 S-box lookup that traces S₁, then S₁ again (landing elsewhere — the proof it is not an involution), then S₁⁻¹ back to the input.
SM4 — the honest post-quantum key-size warning and geopolitical context, plus a round animation that runs the genuine 32-round Feistel/T-transform pipeline (substitute → mix → add-round-key) over the live state you just encrypted, so the round count is shown, not merely asserted. The animation is driven by a spec-accurate tracer whose final output is checked against the GB/T 32907-2016 vector in npm test.
Kuznyechik — the S-box transparency controversy documented (Biryukov, Perrin & Udovenko, EUROCRYPT 2016; Perrin, IACR ToSC 2019).
Avalanche Effect — flip one input bit, watch about 50% of ciphertext bits change.
ECB vs CBC — the raw-block hex view and the actual "ECB penguin" image demonstration: a small picture is encrypted with a real block cipher, and the ECB ghost survives while CBC turns it to noise.
Four-Way Comparison — a comparison table with a decision tree.

What Can Go Wrong

ECB mode leaks structure: identical plaintext blocks produce identical ciphertext blocks (the "ECB penguin"), so a confidential mode like CBC or an AEAD mode is required.
SM4's 128-bit key gives only about 64-bit security against Grover-style quantum search, below NIST's 128-bit post-quantum threshold for long-term data.
Kuznyechik's S-box design transparency concerns (Biryukov, Perrin & Udovenko 2016; Perrin 2019) remain unresolved, which is why it is best confined to mandated compliance use.
Reaching for a national cipher outside its compliance mandate trades AES's scrutiny and tooling for weaker ecosystem support with no security gain.
A raw block cipher provides no integrity; without an authenticated mode, ciphertext can be tampered with undetected, and IV/nonce reuse in CBC further degrades confidentiality.

Real-World Usage

Camellia-256 is endorsed by CRYPTREC, standardized in TLS cipher suites, and used as an AES alternative in Japan.
ARIA-256 is mandated for South Korean government and financial-sector systems.
SM4 is required for products in Chinese markets and is used in Chinese TLS (TLCP) and PKI under Chinese cryptography law.
Kuznyechik is required for Russian GOST R 34.12-2015 compliance.
Camellia and SM4 are standardized under ISO/IEC 18033-3 (SM4 by Amendment 1:2021); ARIA and Kuznyechik are not, though all four serve as sovereign national standards at home.

How to Run Locally

git clone https://github.com/systemslibrarian/crypto-lab-world-ciphers
cd crypto-lab-world-ciphers
npm install
npm run dev

crypto-lab-world-hashes — the hashing counterpart: SM3, Streebog, and Kupyna national hash standards.
crypto-lab-aes-modes — block-cipher modes (ECB/CBC/GCM) and why authenticated encryption matters.
crypto-lab-iron-serpent — Serpent, another AES-finalist-class SPN block cipher.
crypto-lab-chacha20-stream — a modern stream cipher and the cost of nonce reuse.
crypto-lab-ascon — the NIST lightweight AEAD standard, a different design point.

Part of the Crypto Lab suite.

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