Customer Reviews

Codebreaker: The History of Codes and Ciphers

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderful piece of work, well written, documented, illustrated and is aimed at the general reader. The author includes code analysis sections for each code that is discussed, where each code is explained in detail so that the reader is able to try the code themselves. The author also further challenges the reader with an appendix full of codes for the reader to crack with their newly acquired skills.
There are sections throughout the book where the reader is introduced to the important people relating to specific codes, as well as many sections about codes that are still unbroken.
The author chronicles all the important codes and their impact upon history from way back in ancient Egypt as well as Caesar's code, all the way through to the future of codes; quantum cryptography, and everything in between.

This is a superb book in every manner, and a thoroughly enjoyable read.
Five stars.

This book is a good overview of codebreaking for non-technical people. It discusses many different types of ciphers throughout history in a very easy to understand way. I enjoyed it.

I reflect all the positive things said about this book, so I'll only focus on the negative aspects, to which there's only one, and it has nothing to do with the book. As mentioned earlier, there are challenge exercises in the appendix. The appendix says that if you get stumped, you can go to the publisher's website to get the solutions. I made it through the first 3 with no problems, but when it came to the fourth, I have no clue how to solve it. So I go to the website and look up the solution in some vane attempt to see how the solution is derrived without actually seeing the solution so I can still come up with it myself, but unlike the three before it, where the site goes into detail about how they're solved, the site only gives the solution for the fourth and offers no walkthrough of the puzzle whatsoever. Thanks, guys!

A fascinating topic treated simplistically.

If you want to read a wonderful book on cryptography, try Between Silk and Cyanide. Absolute first rate excitement and technical treatment.

This book is the history of ciphers and codes. The time line goes from ancient times to modern man and his computers. The text has many accompanying photos and illustrations and at the end of each chapter the author has included examples of codes for you to "break" using the information given in that chapter. I found the book very interesting but to tell you the truth I was surprised that the book was not more exciting to read. I was expecting more drama and adventure because of the subject mater but the book read more like a text book than an adventure book. I guess that is ok since this is a history book but it could have been a little bit more fun.

This book is not terrible, but I guess I know enough about codes and the like to need something more in depth about this subject. It's not staying on my shelf.