The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography
by Simon Singh
List Price:
Our Price: $8.23
You Save: $16.72 (67%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.47 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Simon SinghEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1999-09-14
ISBN: 0385495315
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Doubleday
Book Reviews of The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography
Book Review: Excellent reading on evolution of cryptography
Summary: 5 Stars
Simon Singh books usually hold you from the first page and till the end. "The code book" is very well written and very informative. You will see how it's started and where cryptography goes, but even more interesting part of history of cryptography - life (sometimes secret life) of people who worked and continue to work on development of cryptosystems.
More The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography reviews:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Summary of The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography
Codes have decided the fates of empires, countries, and monarchies throughout recorded history. Mary, Queen of Scots was put to death by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, for the high crime of treason after spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham cracked the secret code she used to communicate with her conspirators. And thus the course of British history was altered by a few sheets of cryptic prose. This is just one link in humankind's evolutionary chain of secret communication, and just one of the fascinating incidents recounted in The Code Book, written by bestselling author Simon Singh.Combining a superb storyteller's sense of drama and a scientist's appreciation for technical perfection, Singh traces the evolution of secret writing from ancient Greek military espionage to the frontiers of computer science. The result is an epic tale of human ingenuity, with examples that range from the poignant to the peculiar to the world-historical.
There is the case of the Beale ciphers, which involves Wild West escapades, a cowboy who amassed a vast fortune, a buried treasure worth $20 million, and a mysterious set of encrypted papers describing its whereabouts--papers that have baffled generations of cryptanalysts and captivated hundreds of treasure hunters.
A speedier end to a bloody war was the only reward that could be promised to the Allied code breakers of World Wars I and II, whose selfless contributions altered the course of history; but few of them lived to receive any credit for their top-secret accomplishments. Among the most moving of these stories is that of the World War II British code breaker Alan Turing, who gave up a brilliant career in mathematics to devote himself to the Allied cause, only to end his years punished by the state for his homosexuality, while his heroism was ignored. No less heroic were the Navajo code talkers, who volunteered without hesitation to risk their lives for the Allied forces in the Japanese theater, where they were routinely mistaken for the enemy.
Interspersed with these gripping stories are clear mathematical, linguistic, and technological demonstrations of codes, as well as illustrations of the remarkable personalities--many courageous, some villainous, and all obsessive--who wrote and broke them.
All roads lead to the present day, in which the possibility of a truly unbreakable code looms large. Singh explores this possibility, and the ramifications of our increasing need for privacy, even as it begins to chafe against the stated mission of the powerful and deeply secretive National Security Agency. Entertaining, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this is a book that will forever alter your view of history, what drives it, and how private that e-mail you just sent really is.
Included in the book is a worldwide Cipher Challenge--a $15,000 award will be given by the author to the first reader who cracks the code successfully. Progress toward the solution will be tracked on The Code Book website.
People love secrets, and ever since the first word was written, humans have written coded messages to each other. In The Code Book, Simon Singh, author of the bestselling Fermat's Enigma, offers a peek into the world of cryptography and codes, from ancient texts through computer encryption. Singh's compelling history is woven through with stories of how codes and ciphers have played a vital role in warfare, politics, and royal intrigue. The major theme of The Code Book is what Singh calls "the ongoing evolutionary battle between codemakers and codebreakers," never more clear than in the chapters devoted to World War II. Cryptography came of age during that conflict, as secret communications became critical to either side's success.
Confronted with the prospect of defeat, the Allied cryptanalysts had worked night and day to penetrate German ciphers. It would appear that fear was the main driving force, and that adversity is one of the foundations of successful codebreaking.
In the information age, the fear that drives cryptographic improvements is both capitalistic and libertarian--corporations need encryption to ensure that their secrets don't fall into the hands of competitors and regulators, and ordinary people need encryption to keep their everyday communications private in a free society. Similarly, the battles for greater decryption power come from said competitors and governments wary of insurrection. The Code Book is an excellent primer for those wishing to understand how the human need for privacy has manifested itself through cryptography. Singh's accessible style and clear explanations of complex algorithms cut through the arcane mathematical details without oversimplifying. Can't get enough crypto? Try solving the Cipher Challenge in the back of the book--$15,000 goes to the first person to crack the code! --Therese Littleton
Cryptography Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Cryptography Books
Decrypted Secretsby Friedrich L. Bauer
Springer; Published: 2002-03-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $30.45
Price in other shops:
Cryptography: A Primerby Alan G. Konheim
John Wiley & Sons Inc; Published: 1981-04; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
Disappearing Cryptography, Second Edition - Information Hiding: Steganography and Watermarking (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Software Engineering and Programming)by Peter Wayner
Morgan Kaufmann; Published: 2002-04-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $36.95
Price in other shops:
Secure XML: The New Syntax for Signatures and Encryptionby Donald E. Eastlake, Kitty Niles
Pearson Education; Published: 2002-07-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.92
Price in other shops:
Cryptography and E-Commerce: A Wiley Tech Briefby Jon C. Graff
Wiley; Published: 2000-12-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.50
Price in other shops:
Cryptography Demystifiedby John Hershey
McGraw-Hill Professional; Published: 2002-08-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $29.29
Price in other shops:
Information Security Intelligence: Cryptographic Principles & Applicationsby Thomas Calabrese
Delmar Cengage Learning; Published: 2003-12-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $47.86
Price in other shops:
Satellite Encryptionby John R. Vacca
Academic Press; Published: 1999-09-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $53.49
Price in other shops:
Public Key Infrastructure: Building Trusted Applications and Web Servicesby John R.Vacca
Taylor & Francis; Taylor & Francis; Release date: 2007-04-16; Published: 2007-04-16; Kindle Edition; eBooks
Best price: $57.56
Price in other shops:
The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptographyby Simon Singh
Doubleday; Published: 1999-09-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.25
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked Worldby Bruce Schneier
Wiley; Published: 2004-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.19
Price in other shops:
Top Secret: A Handbook of Codes, Ciphers and Secret WritingCandlewick; Published: 2006-04-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.99
Price in other shops:
Journey through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematicsby William Dunham
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1991-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.12
Price in other shops:
Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C, Second Editionby Bruce Schneier
Wiley; Published: 1996-10-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $26.23
Price in other shops:
The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internetby David Kahn
Scribner; Published: 1996-12-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $40.47
Price in other shops:
Big Bang: The Origin Of The Universeby Simon Singh
Published: 2004-12-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Cryptanalysisby Helen F. Gaines
Dover Publications; Published: 1989-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.58
Price in other shops:
Cryptography Decryptedby H. X. Mel, Doris M. Baker
Addison-Wesley Professional; Published: 2000-12-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $27.00
Price in other shops:
Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing (Test Your Code Breaking Skills)by Martin Gardner
Dover Publications; Published: 1984-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.06
Price in other shops:
Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problemby SIMON SINGH
Anchor; Published: 1998-09-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.90
Price in other shops: