Customer Reviews

Codes and Cryptography

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This small gem caught my eye because of its publisher (Oxford, well known for publishing excellent textbooks on scientific subjects), and its simple title. 'Code and cryptography'. Nothing fancy or flashy. Having picked it up, I was pleased to see it's in the style of Shannon's 1948 paper which introduced the science of information theory. I'm especially grateful to the author for his judicious use of simple examples to illustrate complex topics, and when coupled to the clear mathematical language, this book is extremely effective at conveying the material.

Be forewarned, it is dense and heavy, and requires you to really get actively engaged in the material. The presentation of theorems is very textbook, which is useful, but nothing is handed to you so easily. Definitely go into it with a ready mindset, and a good grasp of basic mathematics. However, if you step up to it, it can be a very worthwhile exercise. The book's small size hides its power.

Highly reccomended.

I like this book very much. It is a no-nonsense, robust work which would be very suitable as a text for a formal course in information theory. The mathematics is well presented and is at just the right level to enable the reader to understand the subject without doing intellectual hand-stands. And as a bonus there are solutions to the exercises!

The bottom line is this. A person who knows nothing about coding and cryptography but has a decent grasp of undergraduate maths will have a broad and practical understanding of most of the main concepts in these fields after reading this book. Well worth the money.