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Product Details
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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. --Therese Littleton
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
A technical book wrapped in stories,
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This review is from: The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography (Paperback)
If you want to understand how cryptography works, why it was developed and how it is broken this is one of the best books you can find on that subject. It includes cipher texts at the end to see how much you've learned...a fun way to learn about actually cracking ciphers. Written from a mathematical point of view, with plenty of stories and lore mixed in this book is fun for people with both no calculus experience and people with advanced degrees in applied math. I truly enjoyed this book and the analytical thinking it brought me.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Facinating,
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This review is from: The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography (Paperback)
This book is really a great primer in cryptography. Not only is it a history, but it walks you through the codes as they are invented and then walks you through their desctruction as they are cryptanalyzed into being useless. What fun!This book is half science, half history and half great story. It is 1.5 books! :D If only more topics in CS had such great books.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly readable,
This review is from: The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography (Paperback)
This book is a highly readable history of cryptography covering such diverse topics as Mary, Queen of Scots, the Rosetta Stone, and government secrecy. Singh is a marvellous writer, and makes even the trickier aspects of the subject (such as quantum cryptography) understandable.
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