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The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

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Fascinating!

This book is about cryptology (a term that includes both code making or cryptography and code breaking or cryptanalysis). However, the primary focus is not the science of cryptology or its history although both are covered in sufficient detail. It is, rather, on people; the people who made the codes, the people who broke the codes and the people whose lives were affected by the codes. The book proceeds in a chronological manner as it follows the age old war between code makers and code breakers from the distant past to well into the future.

Singh explains the not-so-easy mathematics and technology behind code making and breaking in a vivid and very accessible style. Elusive topics such as the operation of the Enigma, the mathematics of RSA and the principals of quantum cryptology are so well explained that most readers will grasp them with a single reading. It is hard not to be inspired by this book. Many times you will find yourselves grabbing a sheet of papers and attempting to work out the codes yourself. The book provides a set of ciphers to work on your own and a list of further reading for those interested to follow up on Alice, Bob and Eve (hypothetical characters used to explain techniques in cryptology).

"Uijt jb b gjof cppl" replace each letter by the one that precedes it in the alphabet and you get "This is a fine book". This simple cipher, called the Cesar shift cipher, is one of the earliest known ciphers and is discussed in the first chapter which covers cryptology from ancient Greece until the fourteenth century and narrates the gripping tale of Mary Queen of the Scots. The second chapter covers the evolution of both cryptology and cryptanalysis until the 20th century and narrates, among others, the mysterious tale of Beales ciphers. The third and fourth chapters cover the evolution of cryptology during the first and second world wars and mainly concentrate on the operation and the cracking of the famous German Enigma machine. The fifth chapter covers the Navajo code talkers used by the US in WW2 as well as the inspiring tales of decipherment of Hieroglyphics mainly by Champollion and of Linear B by, among others, Michael Ventris. Chapters six and seven are about Modern Cryptology. They covers the story behind the ground breaking advancements in cryptography, e.g. public key cryptography, that fueled internet communication and commerce. It also ponders in some detail over the issue of privacy versus security. Chapter eight is about the future of Cryptology and how both code makers and code breakers are starting to make use of Quantum mechanics to take cryptology to a whole new level.

As mentioned earlier, this book is about people and it does a good job in paying tribute to many of the usually unsung heroes of cryptology.

All said, this is one of the most gripping, amusing and rewarding general science books; it even has instruction on hiding a message within a hardboiled egg!!

The Code Book review

This is an incredible book that walks the reader through the history of Cryptography in a form that is very easy and enjoyable to read. It stays at a pretty high level through most of the book but has enough technical detail to really help the reader understand the cryptograhic methods. This book has motivated me to continue my study of Cryptography.

A series of true stories with a common theme

This is a great read, more of a series of short interesting stories about codemakers and codebreakers. It goes into some technical detail of methods used in cryptoanalysis for the more technically minded, extremely well researched with all the historical facts. One of the few books I read a second time.

An excellent description of a seemingly complex concept

If you guys have seen David Kahn's Codebreakers, then you must understand that the subject of cryptography is deep in variable and can be seen as one of the genius things occuring in history. However, if you prefer a smaller, quicker read, then this would definitely be it.

You'd think that something like this would be boring with all it's mathematical structures and algorithmic matrices, and even confusing at times, but Simon Singh describes his target subject very well. You will learn of the first methods of hiding methods, and several different methods of scrambling a method. You will learn about the DES (Data Encryption Standard), and about the many people that made such things possible. You will understand that there were several political figures in the past that have used ciphers to discover someone planning to conspire against them or planning to assassinate them, and it will even give you some history on the mysterious Beale cipher that supposedly has never been solved because a key was never given, although the man given these papers successfully deciphered one of these papers with the Declaration of Independence.

Overall, this book was a very engaging read, an excellent covered subject, and was definitely worth such explanation. I hope in the future when they create the newer and bigger Data Encryption Standard, I'm there to understand how it came about and where it originated from (Maybe being a second version of the RSA cipher (Or in simpler terms the Rivest-Shamin-Adleman cipher)).

The Code Book: THe Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

Amazing and touching stories with incredible insights of knowledge. Cryptography becomes interesting, intriguing, fun and highly readable under the author's writings. I never bother to write a book review and I think it is only fair to write one and recommend it to the readers for all the efforts the author has put into this book.

It is also very educational to kids even they are not into science (how can they not to if just be "naturally" curious) . For example, the story of Decipherment of Linear B. And it is also a very moving story behind how ARS becomes RSA of public key cryptography. I see the integrity and dignity of those intellectuals. Apparently they are the role models for kids.

This book worths million dollars more to me.