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

Simon Singh provides the reader with an overview of the history of cryptology and brings to the reader's attention events in history that would probably have had different outcomes had it not been for the achievements of some historical figures - mostly unknown to us today - like Thomas Phelippes who deciphered and forged an encrypted message to Mary, Queen of Scots, thereby forcing her to effectively sign her own death warrant, and Marian Rejewski who provided the groundwork on deciphering the Enigma machine before handing his research over to the British; his enthusiasm for the subject shines through at every page. He also aims to set the record straight for a few unsung heroes, mainly from recent history who, due to the secrecy act, were forbidden from publicly claiming credit for their work in cryptology at the time. Most notably amongst them is Alan Turing who helped crack the Enigma cipher, but also Tommy Flowers who single-handedly built Colossus, the precursor to the modern digital computer but who had to destroy the blueprints after the war, as well as Clifford Cocks and Malcolm Williamson who invented the asymmetric cipher and public-key cryptography four years before the Americans but were sworn to secrecy. I also enjoyed his brief foray into the decipherment of ancient texts like the Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Minoan script of Linear B, but Simon Singh's main achievement lies in his ability to bring across such tricky issues like key distribution, public-key cryptography and quantum cryptography in a simple and lucid manner to a mainly non-technically minded person like me. My only criticism and one that has got nothing to do with the author, is the fact that this book was written more than ten years ago when e-commerce was still in its infancy; since then the world has seen a massive leap in terms of financial transactions being conducted over the internet and even seen the arrival of internet banking and with it the need for ever better security for the individual and companies trading over the internet. I would be most interested to read a topical update in which he covers the last ten years and the impact this has had on cryptography.

Almost perfect for a layman's introductory book on cryptography/ cryptanalysis. 5 stars for all the historical introduction from Ceasar Shift, substitution/transposition, frequency analysis and linguistics, monoalphabets, polyalphabets, Vigenere and Babbage, Turing and the naval Enigma, but minus 0.5-1 stars because modern encryption/decryption techniques were a little rushed relative to the earlier historical half of the book and some applications were hardly mentioned. Interesting that Linear A and Etruscan had not been deciphered at the time this book was written.Although I bought this book late, and technology has advanced since it was written, I was hoping to better understand encryption in the fields of computer science and technology (authentication and certificates on the internet, hashing of passwords, credit card technology...). There was a good intro on RSA and PGP, and I enjoyed the ending on photon traps and quantum computing. I wish there had been a little more on number theory (primes), a comparison of the many modern standards, the use of analysis in digital forensics, ...something a little more technical but maybe there are other books for that.There are some dubious claims in the book that GCHQ invented asymetric public-key encryption 'before' Diffie-Hellman-Merkle and Rivest-Shamir-Aldeman. The claim being made is that GCHQ invented it shortly before (whatever they say, right?), but could not disclose their invention for reasons of national security. I realise that this story was put out in 1997 by GCHQ and not Simon Singh, but where is the evidence?What is more likely is that there were reasons of national security for not disclosing that, despite the huge budgets, the shadowy cold-war era monoliths GCHQ (and NSA) were totally outwitted by a handful of freedom loving academics like Whitfield Diffie, who saw this technology as a means of protecting free speech and, therefore, democracy.Kudos to Simon Singh for stating his suppor for the use of Zimmermann's PGP in the book.The book concludes with a multiple stages code cracking challenge, which starts very easy and gets harder (there was a cash prize at the time).

Very good book on codes which is very explanatory.

Great book for tech and non-tech people, into or not into mathematics. The story of cryptography, its developments and improvements is told in a very easy to understand way, the reader can dig into the theories to learn them or just read through and enjoy the facts. It basically teaches, in a historical context, how each method was developed, broken and improved, with practical examples. If you are a developer and into some maths, I definitely recommend the reading, it will add some skills.

I was reading about cryptography somewhere and it recommended this book, which I subsequently purchased. Absolutely unputdownable! Cryptography and codes have been around for thousands of years, and you can follow the progression from the simplest, to a brief introduction of the totally unbreakable quantum encryption. Mary Queen of Scots plotted to kill Queen Elizabeth by sending coded messages to her accomplices. However, the Queen's code breakers could decipher everything she wrote and condemned Mary to death. Just one of the Amazon facts you will read in this book.

Great book if you have any interest in encryption. Covers from the early days of hiding messages by writing them on someones bald head before allowing the hair to grow all the way to the engima machine in world war 2. Book isnt too heavy for those who are not mathamaticians but explains modern encryption topics in an easily accessable way. Highly recommend it.

Me gusto mucho! Soy fanático de los enigmas y con este libro exploré una historia secreta que no sabía.

The history of secret messaging is excellent. However in the last part of the book its not upto date and considering the book was written 1999 it surely needs rewriting. 25 years is a very long time in cryptography.The printing of the book was also in some areas rather poor, missing text on pages. As seen on the picture.I liked the book and the writer is sometimes funny and very informative. Just wishing printing quality would be better and updated to 2024!

Me ha encantado la perspectiva que da sobre el mundo de la criptografía. Explica conceptos complejos en una forma muy sencilla.Si bien es verdad que no es un libro académico y no te puedes esperar el grandes análisis en profundidad.

This author is very good at explaining complicated cryptography. He makes it very interesting by adding the stories of those who have made recent contributions to the subject. It is informative, readable and entertaining all at the same time.

Simon Singh befasst sich hier mit einem faszinierenden Thema: Wohl schon seit Jahrtausenden haben Menschen das Bedürfnis, geheim miteinander zu kommunizieren und spätestens seit der Antike wurden diverse Methoden entwickelt, eine Nachricht so zu verschlüsseln, dass nur der gewünschte Empfänger sie verstehen kann.Doch im selben Maß, wie die Verschlüsselung immer sicherer wurde, wurden auch immer ausgefeiltere Verfahren zum Entschlüsseln entwickelt. Schließlich hingen oft genug politische oder militärische Siege bzw Niederlagen und damit Menschenleben, oder zumindest wirtschaftliche Erfolge davon ab, zu wissen, was der Gegner plant, und zu verhindern, dass die eigenen Pläne ausgespäht werden.Dieses Buch folgt dem Gang der Geschichte und beschreibt den spannenden Wettlauf zwischen Code-Erfindern und Code-Knackern – von Caesar über Mary Stuart und die Helden von Bletchley Park bis zum Internet-Zeitalter.Dabei wird nicht nur die dahinterstehende Mathematik allgemein verständlich erklärt. Der Autor schildert auch die Umstände, die zu der einen oder anderen Entdeckung führten und holt die Persönlichkeiten vor den Vorhang, die für wegweisende Entwicklungen in diesem Bereich verantwortlich waren.Abgerundet wird das Ganze durch eine Sammlung von verschlüsselten Texten, an denen die Leser selbst ihre Dechiffrierfähigkeiten erproben können.Trotz der teilweise anspruchsvollen Konzepte, die hier vorgestellt werden, ist das Buch flott lesbar und unterhaltsam. Es regt aber auch dazu an, sich noch weiter mit den hier präsentierten Ideen auseinander zu setzen und zeigt, welch umfangreiche Fähigkeiten und vor allem welche Kreativität erforderlich sind, um im Bereich der Ver- und Entschlüsselung erfolgreich zu sein.Das einzige kleine Manko, für das man natürlich niemandem einen Vorwurf machen darf, besteht darin, dass das Buch eben schon über 20 Jahre alt und daher nicht auf dem allerneusten Stand ist. Soweit ich das beurteilen kann, hat es jedoch auch hinsichtlich des Inhalts des letzten Kapitels (Quantencomputer und Quantenkryptografie) seither keine wirklich umwälzenden Neuerungen gegeben.