The Code Book
The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography
Ratings53
Average rating4.1
In his first book since the bestselling Fermat's Enigma, Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy. Throughout the text are clear technical and mathematical explanations, and portraits of the remarkable personalities who wrote and broke the world's most difficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history and what drives it. It will also make you wonder how private that e-mail you just sent really is.
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Very readable but downgraded my rating because it is now unfortunately a bit out of date
Beautiful insight into cryptography throughout history (up until 1999.). Much more interesting than I anticipated.
The most beautiful part is foreshadowing bitcoin, which today stands strong on the grounds of breakthrough concepts explained throughout the second half of the book.
About the history of encryption, with sometimes quite technical explanations offset by some memorable stories, like how the US used Navajos to communicate on the battlefield, in lieu of an unbreakable code.
