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The Code Book: The Secret History of Codes & Code-Breaking Paperback – January 1, 2000

by Simon Singh (Author)

4.6 2,095 ratings

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From the Author of Fermat's Lat Theorem

Print length

402 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Fourth Estate Limited
Publication date

January 1, 2000
ISBN-10

0007635745
ISBN-13

978-0007635740
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fourth Estate Limited (January 1, 2000)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 402 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0007635745
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0007635740
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces

Best Sellers Rank: #3,338,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #968 in Web Encryption

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4.6 2,095 ratings

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Simon Singh

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Simon Singh is a science journalist and TV producer. Having completed his PhD at Cambridge he worked from 1991 to 1997 at the BBC producing Tomorrow's World and co-directing the BAFTA award-winning documentary Fermat's Last Theorem for the Horizon series. He is the author of Fermat's Last Theorem, which was a no 1 bestseller in Britain and translated into 22 languages. In 1999, he wrote The Code Book which was also an international bestseller and the basis for the Channel 4 series The Science of Secrecy.

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Mickey

One of the best books I’ve ever had to read for class

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2024

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I don’t read that much anymore. I bought this book as required reading for a class but I would read it even on my own. Super interesting read that I’m going to recommend to my dad as well. Easy to follow and written in a narrative way that keeps your interest. Definitely one of the best books I’ve had to read for class.

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Metallurgist

Entertaining and enlightening

Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2014

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This is a very well written and entertaining book that covers codes from the earliest ones to quantum computer codes. I liked the balance between historical information and some details about how codes and ciphers are created and broken. The book is written for a general audience, but also contains a lot of somewhat technical information, but is not so mathematical as to be inaccessible for most readers. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in codes, ciphers and some of the privacy issues that are entailed with the use and decryption of them.

What is in the book –
The book goes beyond many others in the area of codes and ciphers in that it discusses very up to date topics (at least up to 1999 when the book was written), such as the ciphers being used for Internet transactions and questions of privacy and code breaking. The book also covers material on the deciphering of hieroglyphics and Linear-B, which are not covered in other books on codes. I found the sections on the techniques used to decipher messages enciphered with a Vigenére table and the algorithms employed by the DES and RSA systems to be very clear and enlightening. The book contains information on the Enigma machine and the work at Bletchley Park in Britain to decipher the messages sent on it. However, this material is not as detailed as the material in books such as Budainsky’s “Battle of Wits”, Kahn’s “Seizing the Enigma” or Sebag-Montefiore’s “The Battle for the Code”, so if this is your primary interest I would direct you to these sources. However, if your interest is more general then I think that “The Code Book” is an excellent choice.

3 people found this helpful

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Karl Janssen

An intelligent mix of history and how-to

Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2023

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In The Code Book, British author and physicist Simon Singh provides a history of cryptography from ancient times to the present. This is a popular science book aimed at general readers, so the text is accessible and isn’t bogged down with incomprehensible mathematical jargon. It’s still an intellectually challenging read, however, and those who are interested in the arcane details of this subject will find it quite entertaining. Singh explains that The Code Book is really more about ciphers than about codes, but The Cipher Book just wouldn’t sound as cool.

Every time someone writes a book about cryptography for the general reader, some fundamentals must be covered. First of all, the author must explain how a simple alphabetic substitution cipher works (each letter in the alphabet is substituted for another). Then, the writer must explain how to solve such a cipher using frequency analysis (the most commonly used letter in the ciphertext, for example, is likely to represent E, the most common letter in the English alphabet, and so on). Anyone with an interest in cryptography already knows about these elementary matters, but they must be included in order to lay the foundation for the discussion and to educate newcomers to the subject. It’s no small feat that Singh manages to explain these basics in an articulate way that novices can understand but won’t bore the pants off those who already know what he’s talking about.

The Code Book is a fascinating mix of cryptographic history and practical knowledge on how ciphers are created and cracked. Singh doesn’t just talk about how ciphers were used in the past and show you some examples. He really gives you an understanding of how each cipher works and the motivation behind its development. There’s an entire chapter, for example, on the Nazis’ World War II code machine named Enigma. The reader comes away with a pretty thorough understanding of that mechanism’s cryptographic process. This is followed by another chapter about how the Allies cracked the Enigma cipher. From there, Singh goes into digital cryptography. To some extent, computer-generated ciphers are too complex for the unaided human mind to unravel, but Singh still does a great job of explaining the methods and mathematics behind today’s digital encryption. Finally, Singh moves into quantum cryptography and quantum computing. In order to discuss these topics, he has to give the reader a nutshell overview of quantum mechanics, which he manages to do quite eloquently.

Singh goes off on some digressions that feel unnecessary. In the first chapter, I don’t think I needed a complete biography of Mary Queen of Scots to figure out how her cipher worked, and the discussion of cryptography really got lost amid all the historical context. Singh also spends half a chapter on the decipherment of ancient languages, such as Egyptian hieroglyphics and Linear B. While I’m interested in that subject, it feels out of place here because it ventures more into linguistics than cryptography.

The Code Book was published in 1999, so it only covers the history of cryptography up to that point. A lot has happened since then. Singh writes about identity theft and personal data leaks as if they were events bound to happen in the future, not the common occurrences of today. Although he covers the initial scientific investigations into quantum computing, further developments have occurred in the past two decades. This is a history book, after all, and the present never stays the present forever. As a historical summary of cryptography up to the year 2000, it’s hard to imagine a better one-volume treatment than this.

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George

For people that enjoy the history and science genres

Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2018

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For people that enjoy the history and science genres, this is the perfect book. You get a balance of the history of ciphers and encryption over the course of human history while also learning about the technical details of how ciphers and encryption work (and how they are broken). The Code Book is extremely well written and after finishing it you really do feel like you learned something.

Some other great aspects of this book are a Cipher Challenge at the end which allows you to test your codebreaking skills as well as multiple appendices for those who want to go even deeper into the technical areas of ciphers and encryption.

My only complaint about this book is that it's aging. It was written in 1999, and the world of computing has changed a lot from 1999-2018. But don't let this fact deter you from reading The Code Book. The historical cipher/encryption knowledge that you learn about in the World Wars and the dawn of computing are very interesting. Even if you only want to focus on the modern aspects of encryption, I still recommend reading this book and then picking up something more modern after.

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Gerardo Tonatiuh Primo Rodriguez

Increíble, divertido, fácil de leer

Reviewed in Mexico on September 20, 2021

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Me gusto mucho! Soy fanático de los enigmas y con este libro exploré una historia secreta que no sabía.

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Arun Paramekanti

Marvellous book!

Reviewed in Canada on February 7, 2021

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Simon Singh has written a brilliant account of the development of codes and cryptography, from the history of Mary Queen of Scots, to WWII, to RSA, and to the very edge of quantum computing. Singh keeps it accessible, except for the later bits on RSA and quantum computing which need a bit more math/physics to really follow, but he gives nice analogies which atleast makes the reader feel like they understand something of these. Along the way, we also learn of important historical events and people, and some fun mysteries. Overall, an excellent read for 15+.

sailendran

Excellent

Reviewed in India on February 8, 2023

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Excellent

Unai Estebanez Sevilla

Es un libro de divulgación perfecto

Reviewed in Spain on August 3, 2022

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Me ha encantado la perspectiva que da sobre el mundo de la criptografía. Explica conceptos complejos en una forma muy sencilla.
Si bien es verdad que no es un libro académico y no te puedes esperar el grandes análisis en profundidad.

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karin1910

Interessante Tour voller Geheimnisse und Rätsel

Reviewed in Germany on March 17, 2021

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Simon Singh befasst sich hier mit einem faszinierenden Thema: Wohl schon seit Jahrtausenden haben Menschen das Bedürfnis, geheim miteinander zu kommunizieren und spätestens seit der Antike wurden diverse Methoden entwickelt, eine Nachricht so zu verschlüsseln, dass nur der gewünschte Empfänger sie verstehen kann.
Doch im selben Maß, wie die Verschlüsselung immer sicherer wurde, wurden auch immer ausgefeiltere Verfahren zum Entschlüsseln entwickelt. Schließlich hingen oft genug politische oder militärische Siege bzw Niederlagen und damit Menschenleben, oder zumindest wirtschaftliche Erfolge davon ab, zu wissen, was der Gegner plant, und zu verhindern, dass die eigenen Pläne ausgespäht werden.

Dieses Buch folgt dem Gang der Geschichte und beschreibt den spannenden Wettlauf zwischen Code-Erfindern und Code-Knackern – von Caesar über Mary Stuart und die Helden von Bletchley Park bis zum Internet-Zeitalter.
Dabei wird nicht nur die dahinterstehende Mathematik allgemein verständlich erklärt. Der Autor schildert auch die Umstände, die zu der einen oder anderen Entdeckung führten und holt die Persönlichkeiten vor den Vorhang, die für wegweisende Entwicklungen in diesem Bereich verantwortlich waren.
Abgerundet wird das Ganze durch eine Sammlung von verschlüsselten Texten, an denen die Leser selbst ihre Dechiffrierfähigkeiten erproben können.
Trotz der teilweise anspruchsvollen Konzepte, die hier vorgestellt werden, ist das Buch flott lesbar und unterhaltsam. Es regt aber auch dazu an, sich noch weiter mit den hier präsentierten Ideen auseinander zu setzen und zeigt, welch umfangreiche Fähigkeiten und vor allem welche Kreativität erforderlich sind, um im Bereich der Ver- und Entschlüsselung erfolgreich zu sein.

Das einzige kleine Manko, für das man natürlich niemandem einen Vorwurf machen darf, besteht darin, dass das Buch eben schon über 20 Jahre alt und daher nicht auf dem allerneusten Stand ist. Soweit ich das beurteilen kann, hat es jedoch auch hinsichtlich des Inhalts des letzten Kapitels (Quantencomputer und Quantenkryptografie) seither keine wirklich umwälzenden Neuerungen gegeben.

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The Code Book: The Secret History of Codes & Code-Breaking Paperback – January 1, 2000

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