Customer Reviews

The Code Book: How to Make It, Break It, Hack It, Crack It

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The Code Book is a delightful treatment of the subject of cryptography. It is a nice combination of history, science, warfare and politics.

The author uses interesting historical events as background to narrate the different phases of what might be called the mainstream developments of cryptography and cryptanalysis. It is a captivating presentation.

The book started off with the story of Queen Mary of Scotland, and went on to cover the Caesar cipher, Vigenère cipher, the famous Enigma, the super-secret Colossus, and the modern day computer based encryption and decryption developments. The author also threw in a couple of interesting "sideline" stories, such as the Beale cipher, the Rosetta Stone, and the Navajo "code talkers" who played a key role in the Pacific theater during WWII.

My teenage son used to complain that most of the difficult subjects he learned in school would never have any use in real life. I gave him a copy of this book. The book is a compelling story of how science, engineering, mathematics, computer, linguistics, psychology are all critical pieces of this all-important game.

There are more technical treatises on this subject, and there are more lengthy and nuanced historical accounts on military intelligence as well. But this book is undoubtedly the best introduction to this uniquely fascinating subject.

Reading this book gave me my start in my self study of cryptography, its science and its history. While I will not pretend to be anywhere near an expert on the subject, I found this book very insightful. It is an easy read, and not tedious in any way. It is meant as a "science for non-scientists" type book, and more of a history than anything else. (I have only managed to solve the first two cryptologic challenges at the end of this book, but am diligently working on the rest in my spare time.)

Intended for an audience of young adults, Simon Singh's The Code Book will appeal to many an adult reader as it reveals the science of cryptography - the encoding and decoding of private information. The history spans centuries and ranges from an early Enigma machine to email communications and Internet privacy. The Code Book is recommended as an intriguing and informative survey.

I have always been fascinated by codes and Singh has put together a comprehensive book on the history of codes. Having read many books on codes, Singh was still able to enthrall me with some historical stories that I had not come across. It's not just technical stuff, but is written with the novice in mind as well. But the book holds enough technical information to keep the enthusiast interested as well. The version I bought has a crypt contest in the back, which I enjoyed working on - I was only able to solve the first 3 or so puzzles, but it was a lot of fun.

The Code Book was intended for a young adult audience but also holds an ability to interest an adult readership as well. This history of cryptography provides plenty of depth and information on making and breaking codes, providing a historical background on an ongoing battle which has been waged for centuries. An intriguing look at codes and secrecy.

Singh has provided the reader a delightful history of encryption, beginning with 16th-century codes, proceeding with the mechanized ones, and concluding with modern computer-based systems. He points out how modern encryption is being used to thwart the counterfeiting of dollars, and rejects the so-called Bible Code.

Singh also touches on the intricacies of language, and discusses the difficulty of deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphics. This involved the decoding of a language that no one speaks today, and one which has no close relatives among modern languages. He also has a fascinating account of the Navajo Indians and their unique language, and how their conversations were used to keep the Japanese in the dark during WWII.

When in comes to the German ENIGMA code of WWII, and in contrast to some English-language books on this subject, Singh gives credit squarely where it is due. He traces the Polish successes with code-breaking, beginning with the cracking of Russian codes by the Biuro Szyfrow (the Bureau of Ciphers) during the 1920 Polish-Bolshevik War (p. 144). In the years before WWII, a Polish team of mathematicians headed by Marian Rejewski recognizably solved the ENIGMA (p. 155). The Poles were ten years ahead of anyone else in this field (p. 160). The later successes of the British at Bletchley relied on Rejewski's work (p. 170), and followed the lead of the Poles (p. 243). Alan Turing followed Rejewski's strategy (p. 171).

Singh relates a plenty of interesting facts of the history of cryptography that were kept secret for a long time. Besides, a good introduction to the idea of some simple cryptographic schemes gives the reader a little bit of the thrill that involve the study of codes. Although I liked the book very much, in my opinion, the title does not reflect what's inside: actually, you don't lear how to make, break, hack or crack anything.

HI! aLRIGHT, LET ME GIVE IT STRAIGHT HAHA I read this book and I found it INTERESTING, witty,(he kinda winks at you..and there are some humorous parts...well, of course not in the slapstick "HAHAHA!" way, but u'll see) challenging (Mr. Singh does not treat us like little babies..the vocabulary is SAT-worthy :p...) -and I didn't know much at all about codes. Mr. singh takes you through everything he wants to show you clearly and adding spice- the historical part is NOT boring...it WOuld be boring without it, actually! He intertwines anecdotes and events in history (i.e. starting from the very beginning, WWI and WWII, the beheading of Mary Queen of Scotts, to the present day) with the use of codes (i.e.-Enigma machine, monoalphabetic substituion cipher -> each letter in the alphabet is represented by a symbol)...This book is cozy (reading it on a dark rainy night...awooooo....), it's really like a novel- It's like you delve into it and it pulls you in...I admit there are some parts that are slightly "technical" but TRUST me, as I said before, he explains it so that even someone who is not math-oriented can follow along. At the end of this book I REally felt smarter and more confident...(p.s.-I even cracked the first two codes- using my brain/pencil/paper/knowledge I gained from the book...he gives at the end of the book under "Reader's Challenge"- I haven;t cracked the last two) Don;t be Intimidated! I recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries,has ever been intrigued by codes/detectives, history, math, and creative people (I am an English person...and this is NOT a boring book in my opinion.)oooh..plus u can have fun w/a friend encoding secret messages ;]

hellz yeah 5 STARs *****

This book is a great read for anyone wanting to "tickle" their brain with the basic knowledge and background of cryptography. I was very impressed with the way the author presented the information and giving credit where credit is due. He only lays down the facts. From Egyptian hieroglyphics, to the enigma encoder, to modern RSA encryption the author acutely explains the origin, their creator and/or breaker for some of the most well known forms of encryptions. The Code Book is very moderately priced for the information it contains. Great read from any stand point.


***WARNING ANSWERS TO FIRST CIPHER IN BACK OF BOOK BELOW***
*** DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW THE ANSWER***
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CRYPTOGRAM 1

I Cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Winston Churchill.