Customer Reviews

Codemaster: Secrets Of Making And Breaking Codes

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This book is unique in a crowded field of cryptography books. I have read dozens of books from children's books to Helen Fouche Gaines and Sinkov to Kahn to Schneier. This book is different, because it tackles its subject from the standpoint of "field agent", or "operator" communicating with his or her handler.
It talks about what options you may have in terms of paper-and-pencil ciphers, calculator based psuedo-one time pad ciphers, book ciphers, handheld (albeit obsolete) computers, and DOS-based/GWBasic product ciphers. It contemplates the construction of code tables for secure voice communication over a non-scrambled radio or phone similar to those used by special people doing special things out in God's country a few years ago.
It provides working examples of most ciphers except the computer-based ciphers, and the source code for that is quaint but workable. I typed in diablo, and the cipher worked in QBasic on a Pentium with W95 and a laptop with W98. But it still would have been nice if the author had put in a couple of test cases for them.
It gives a thumbnail sketch of how a controller can use the same program with different master keys to communicate with subordinates, and he pointedly warns/advises people about the dangers of devices that can't be instantly erased with the push of a button. Hmm.
If you enjoyed Singh's "The Code Book", or Marks' "Between Silk and Cyanide",or if you've printed out a several pages of Tony Sale's Enigma/Bletchley web page, or if you rolled your eyes a few times when reading Dan (not Dale) Brown's "Digital Fortress", I definitely think you'll respect this book.