Customer Reviews

A Brief History of Cryptology

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Overall, this book is a short and easy read, but falls short of the title: "A Brief History of Cryptology".

Perhaps fearing inadvertently stating some piece of classified data, the author has chosen to focus on the cryptography vice cryptology. Cryptology is the combination of cryptography (making codes) and cryptoanalysis (breaking codes).

Indeed, this book is more of an analysis over the combination of advanced mathematics, communications theory, and networking in the development of modern secure communications.

This reviewer recommends "The Codebreakers" as a far better substitute.

This could certainly have been a much longer book. Boone gives us a precis of cryptology through the centuries. Though with a natural emphasis on the last hundred years. Because it in only within this period that mechanical and then electronic calculators and computers came to the fore, thus enabling ever more sophisticated algorithms and countermeasures.

But both during and before this period, the book is a tribute to human ingenuity. For all the power of the latest computers used in encryption, they are merely idiot savants.

Given the author's background, it is a pity that he could not have striven to write more, about strictly declassified matters. Which would have played to his strengths in his professional experience. While the historical material in the book is well written and accurate, other authors have covered those matters well. His comparative advantage perhaps was not put to full use here.

J.V. Bone's A Brief History Of Cryptology provides more than just a history of cryptography communications: it covers how it affects our daily lives; from secure financial transactions and communications to common cryptologic secrets. Boone provides a historical review of technological developments in cryptology and computers, covering major achievements and activities across the field. His is a lively account which may come from a military intelligence background, but which avoids the confusing jargon common in cryptology explanations.