Cryptol is a domain specific programming language for cryptography developed by the Portland, Oregon based software development firm, Galois, Inc..[1][2] The language was originally developed for use by the United States National Security Agency.[1] The language is also used by private firms that provide information technology systems, such as the American company Rockwell Collins provides to aerospace and defense contractors in the United States.[1]
The programming language is used for all aspects of developing and using cryptography, such as the design and implementation of new ciphers and the verification of existing cryptographic algorithms.[1][2][3] Cryptol is designed to allow the cryptographer to watch how stream processing functions in the program manipulate the ciphers or encryption algorithms.[2] This aspect of Cryptol has been of particular interest to computer programmers who write new programming languages and to the field of artificial intelligence.