this is great article for someone to undertand how cryptography and AES works - but as all great explanations - it fails to explain some key concepts that take it from 0 - to "got it!" for me (hacker with absolutely no idea of how cryptography works other than simple caesar ciphers and stuff from childhood books) - this actually reminds me of the article in rjlipton's blog that also made it up HN a couple of weeks ago (http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/give-me-a-lever/) about the lever in any mathematical explanation. I'm going to use that a little leniently here and go so far as to say - the algorithm makes sense - but for someone who doesn't get cryptography - its the "key" that's the lever. I get the diffusion and confusion and most of the rest - that math is not the hardest bit. But how the key actually comes into being - and how the Standard ensures that only the 2 people in the conversation have the key - is what would really crack the entire thing for me.