[pvg]

You're better off reading the Wikipedia page which covers things like that (for instance, the Merkle–Damgård construction) in some detail and without all the oversimplifications and almost unavoidable wrongness of slight write-ups like this.

[greggsy]

On the contrary, I just want the dumbed down version. I’m not ever going to implement it (nobody should RYO crypto unless you really know what you’re doing), nor am I going to have to rely on the knowledge in my daily life - I’m not a maths educator, and I’m certainly not a cryptographer.

It’s still good to understand the basics.

I learnt a lot about PKI by forcing myself to learn the absolute basics of modulo, but I’ll never implement it or do a full calculation.

[pvg]

This isn't really a 'dumbed down version' and the person I'm replying to specifically asked about the sort of things not covered in this version.