As always Simon Singn takes the reader on a fantastic trip through History. Filled with entertaining stories, puzzles and heroic events, the author skillfully covers the history of secret writing. If you liked his coverage of Fermat's Enigma then you will definitely enjoy this book.

The prose is capturing, deep enough to fascinate technical readers and light enough to just entertain the casual reader. I specialized in Quantum computers while studying Mathematics and I am astonished that the author manages to explain such non-trivial subjects as quantum computers and cryptography to the degree where ordinary readers can actually understand how they work and their impact on ciphers such as RSA/DSA. In short another great read from one of the best and most entertaining technical writers who ever lived.

Simon Singh books usually hold you from the first page and till the end. "The code book" is very well written and very informative. You will see how it's started and where cryptography goes, but even more interesting part of history of cryptography - life (sometimes secret life) of people who worked and continue to work on development of cryptosystems.

Nutshell review - This is an excellent book covering the history of cryptography up to present day and into the near future. Very well written, easy to understand and worth reading by any layperson interested in the topic.

If you want to know about codes, secrets, cryptography and cryptanalysis then this is the book. Simon Singh presents the history of codes in a clear and simple way. Without the mathematics to disturb the flow of the story, you enjoy plots, conspiracies, secrets and algorithms. Excellent for general knowledge and for an introductory text in cryptanalysis. Buy it!

great book regarding the history of cryptography. The only way to truly understand anything is c the history of it's introduction

For a book on cryptology from a historical perspective it's really hard to believe it would be as entertaining as Singh makes it. Using his skill as an author he weaves history, technology, and methods of encryption together to explain topics that normally would leave many of us in the blind.

The most interesting thing about the whole book is that as you begin to read up on forms of encryption and decryption you begin to absorb yourself into the whole culture. One chapter describes the Beale Ciphers, a set of ciphers that gained popularity especially in the early 1900s and still are significant today linking to a fabulous treasure and yet still remaining unbroken. I remember spending the day after reading up on it thinking of ways I'd try to break the cipher. Not many books fill your mind with such rich images and excitement as this book seems to.

Generally, the book is wonderful and has enough to keep you hooked until the very end despite its historical nature.

Simon Singh does a very clever thing. He takes comlex topics and makes them understandable without dumming down the science or math.

The book is clear, entertaining, and just in general very well written. The book provides an overview of the subject, and its history. I highly recommend it as a primer to the field of Cryptology.

If you have never read a Simon Singh book, it's time to begin now! While most Singh books can seem a bit boring when you read the synopsis (can a book about codes really be interesting??), this is not the case. He has a wonderfull way of explaining complicated things in an understandable way. I will also highly recommend "Fermat's enigma" and "Big bang".

As a mathematician in the early 1970s, I saw many advertisements recruiting mathematicians for the CIA. I knew that it had to do with cryptography and number theory but it was all very mysterious and since I never got a job with them I didn't see precisely how the disciplines fit together. As Singh describes the discover of the RSA coding system it all becomes very clear.
The story he tells is particularly interesting because it starts with the ancient Romans and the decoding of the conspiracy messages of Mary Queen of Scots in Elizabethian England.

Singh also wrote an very interesting account in layman's terms of the discoveries that led to the proof of Fermat's last theorem. That skill is also demonstrated in this book where the key concepts of cryptgraphy are discussed as they were developed through history. The uses of cryptography in World War I and World War II are brought out. We learn of the men in England at Bletchley Park who were able to decypher the German Enigma Machine and play a major role in the latter success of the allies. The gain of information from the U boats enabled the Americans to transport supplies and soldiers to Europe to fight the war. The U boats were very successful at destroying American ships prior to the breaking of the code.

It is interesting that after the war the academic community in the United States solved the problem of key passing for computer networks and developed the RSA code. These discovery were developed earlier and independently in England at their secret agency the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) based on the unheralded ideas of James Ellis. Their work was kept secret until the late 1990s when their achievements were finally brought to light.

The book also discusses the archaeological work on the Rosetta Stone and Linear B. This work uncovered the meaning of the hieroglyphics and showed that the Minoans language was a form of Greek. The techniques were very much akin to deciphering code.

Also of interest is the Navajo code talkers who used their language as an unbreakable code during the war in the Pacific in World War II.

Recent developments and conjectures about future breakthroughs are discussed in the last few chapters. The book provides very useful information about other books and interesting web sites including one that allows you to download Zimmerman's Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) which provides RSA level security.

This is a wonderful book, well written, suitable to both curious reader and professional. It is suitable to the curious reader because all the explanations are very well written such that its not so hard to follow the flow of ideas. And it is suitable to the professional because the author gives an historical perspective of the use of codes and ciphers and the reasons of the improvements.

Finally but not less important, the write style make the short biographies and the histories a very enjoyable reading.

"The Code Book" is a highly readable, engaging and informative book on cryptology (the science of code-making and code-breaking). The book covers the evolution of secrecy across time and addresses the current state of this science.

For those interested in codes in general, this is a staple book...highly recommended.

I found it interesting and well written. Relize Simon is a Brit, so slightly a different type of sentence structure. I found sometimes that I just could not put the book down. I found out about the book from MAA. It's a college Math Mag playing with Hamming Code. Got interested in the artical about the book and then purchased it. Out of the three cyrpto books I bought this was the best. Others focused on the mathmatics and were not translated well from German.

This great book might on one hand be seen as an introduction to
cryptography (producing codes) and cryptanalysis (breaking codes), and on
the other hand as an anthology of slightly dramatized biographies of
certain individuals, throughout the whole history of codes and ciphers,
related to corresponding major events.

The style of the book is a successful and well-structured mixture of
popular science at its best and somewhat rigorous descriptions of
concepts and algorithms of various complexity. It starts off with telling
the story of the so called 'cipher of Mary Queen of Scots', then
successively deals with, for instance, the initial invention of a
theoretically unbreakable code (through using random numbers) and its
practical drawbacks, the rise and fall of the Enigma code, the usage of
codes in the form of unusual (hopefully unknown to the enemy or opponent)
languages, the analysis of ancient forgotten languages, privacy issues
including safe transfering of code keys and, finally, ends with
discussions of modern, and possibly future, cryptography/cryptanalysis-
techniques based on quantum computers and theory.

Moreover, additional interesting, and in some instances somewhat more
technical, material is referred to several appendices.

Note: The swedish translated edition includes quite a lot of Sweden-specific
information. (Translator: Margareta Brogren.) In all respects this is a
most impressive piece of work!

This great book might on one hand be seen as an introduction to
cryptography (producing codes) and cryptanalysis (breaking codes), and on
the other hand as an anthology of slightly dramatized biographies of
certain individuals, throughout the whole history of codes and ciphers,
related to corresponding major events.

The style of the book is a successful and well-structured mixture of
popular science at its best and somewhat rigorous descriptions of
concepts and algorithms of various complexity. It starts off with telling
the story of the so called 'cipher of Mary Queen of Scots', then
successively deals with, for instance, the initial invention of a
theoretically unbreakable code (through using random numbers) and its
practical drawbacks, the rise and fall of the Enigma code, the usage of
codes in the form of unusual (hopefully unknown to the enemy or opponent)
languages, the analysis of ancient forgotten languages, privacy issues
including safe transfering of code keys and, finally, ends with
discussions of modern, and possibly future, cryptography/cryptanalysis-
techniques based on quantum computers and theory.

Moreover, additional interesting, and in some instances somewhat more
technical, material is referred to several appendices.

Note: The swedish translated edition includes quite a lot of Sweden-specific
information. (Translator: Margareta Brogren.) In all respects this is a
most impressive piece of work!

Great Book! A fun read and very interesting. A history of code making and code breaking from the beginning until now.

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).

this book is one of the best books i have read in a while. it explanes everything you want tok now about cryptography and how to break the codes. this author knows his stuff.

This is a classic work on secret writing and cryptography. I have had copies of it in the past. Somehow they disappear. Now there is a fresh copy on the shelf. If you have an interest in puzzles and in history this is a good one to have even if you are not particulary interested in secret writing or encryption.

An entertaining and informative book about the history of codes by Simon Singh, an English physicist of Indian descent who had previously written a very good tome about Fermat's last theorem. Highlights of the book are discussions of the Enigma machine and its decipherement during World War II by Marian Rejewski and Alan Turing, the decipherement of the ancient greek alphabet called Lineal B (not strictly a secret code, but a fascinating story nonetheless) and the more modern developements of public key and quantum cryptography (the latter one, still in development, promises the long sought dream of an unbreakable code). The book does not presuppose previous mathematical knowledge, though the later chapters do require some intense concentration on the part on the reader.

Wow, wow, wow. I have never read a book faster than this one. I couldn't put it down!



I don't want to spoil any of the incredible stories found within, so I'll just describe the book's two main strengths.



Firstly, the explanations of increasingly complex cyphers, all the way down to quantum cryptography, were insanely good. As an example, the workings of Enigma, the sophisticated encryption machine used by the Nazis, became transparent after reading this book.



Equally important, the encryption methods described in the book are masterfully tied in with their historical context, much of which is not widely known because much of the material was classified for a very long time. I think you will be amazed by how much of history was decided by the strength and weaknesses of various cyphers. I was.



In short, go read this book. It is extremely entertaining and (bonus!) extremely informative.

This was a very easy reading book-- in spite of the level of sophistication of some of the ideas. It is also very good how the author reviews just enough math for what you will need to know in order to understand some of the ideas in codebreaking.

There are also lots of nuggets of knowledge for people who like trivia-- such as the contribution of the Navajo to the war effort by the use of their language, or the Poles to codebreaking technology because of their being in between two hostile neighbors. It is also often not understood the level of aggression of the Germans during WWII and how much thought went into the military strategies of the various nations.

The prose is clear and concise. This is defnitely worth a second read.

As a final testatment to how absorbing this book was: I read most of it on a train traveling through China while seated in a car that held about 150 other people (in spite of being designed for 105), and that was so crowded that it was not possible to move down the aisles. This book kept me busy for almost the whole train ride.

This book is coherent, really well written. If you just a bit enjoy math & ciphers you must read it.

The Author uses key events in history to explain how the codemakers were engaged in a battle of wits with the codebreakers (cryptanalysts) of the opposite camp, and why at different times either side prevailed, thus influencing the course of history.
While codemakers started with upper hand from the era of Romans to Arabs, the codebreakers start to strike back by deciphering cipher codes like the substitution and vignere ciphers using techniques like frequency analysis. We then see how codebreakers played their role in victory during protestant-catholic power struggle in England , and other occasions including Crimean war, World War I . It was with the mechanised encrypting machine Enigma that the Codemakers made a comeback, presenting a severe challenge to the cryptanalysts during World War II. Though Navajo language based codes were successfully employed by the US during WW II, this period marked the time when cryptanalysis slowly moved away from the domain of linguists to the mathematicians. Enigma was eventually cracked by the expert mathematicians from Poland and England. Turing who cracked the modified Enigma so crucial to allied victory, was a key figure in early development of computers (a Turing award is equivalent to a nobel prize in computers).
With Enigma cracked, the codebreakers had once again the upperhand. Key distribution was a weak link often open to theft and spying, which always left it vulnerable. Diffie-hellman-Merkle came up with the solution of public key cryptography, where the common key was calculated locally without being distributed on any medium. It would take enormous resources of distributed computing to break the key, which requires either government organisations like NSA or large collobaration in Internet.
Finally the ethical dilemma of privacy vs security is discussed. Should Governments allow private citizens to have the capability to generate unbreakable codes, or should it retain its capability to break into any codes.
The promise of Quantum crytography to provide unbreakable code guaranteed by physical law, will be a headache for future government policy makers.

The Author uses key events in history to explain how the codemakers were engaged in a battle of wits with the codebreakers (cryptanalysts) of the opposite camp, and why at different times either side prevailed, thus influencing the course of history.
While codemakers started with upper hand from the era of Romans to Arabs, the codebreakers start to strike back by deciphering cipher codes like the substitution and vignere ciphers using techniques like frequency analysis. We then see how codebreakers played their role in victory during protestant-catholic power struggle in England , and other occasions including Crimean war, World War I . It was with the mechanised encrypting machine Enigma that the Codemakers made a comeback, presenting a severe challenge to the cryptanalysts during World War II. Though Navajo language based codes were successfully employed by the US during WW II, this period marked the time when cryptanalysis slowly moved away from the domain of linguists to the mathematicians. Enigma was eventually cracked by the expert mathematicians from Poland and England. Turing who cracked the modified Enigma so crucial to allied victory, was a key figure in early development of computers (a Turing award is equivalent to a nobel prize in computers).
With Enigma cracked, the codebreakers had once again the upperhand. Key distribution was a weak link often open to theft and spying, which always left it vulnerable. Diffie-hellman-Merkle came up with the solution of public key cryptography, where the common key was calculated locally without being distributed on any medium. It would take enormous resources of distributed computing to break the key, which requires either government organisations like NSA or large collobaration in Internet.
Finally the ethical dilemma of privacy vs security is discussed. Should Governments allow private citizens to have the capability to generate unbreakable codes, or should it retain its capability to break into any codes.
The promise of Quantum crytography to provide unbreakable code guaranteed by physical law, will be a headache for future government policy makers.

This is a good book to provide a minimal background for most people for the subject of encryption. For many this might not be an exciting subject. But thanks to this book it helps explain its relevance and history. Besides providing a background on encryption it highlights a story about a true hero of great genius. Unfortunately as the story unfolds he will be maligned and harassed until he ends his life, just because he was homosexual. Regardless of his choice of partners, his work and mind were brilliant.

This is a good book to provide a minimal background for most people for the subject of encryption. For many this might not be an exciting subject. But thanks to this book it helps explain its relevance and history. Besides providing a background on encryption it highlights a story about a true hero of great genius. Unfortunately as the story unfolds he will be maligned and harassed until he ends his life, just because he was homosexual. Regardless of his choice of partners, his work and mind were brilliant.

This is a good book to provide most people with a minimal background of encryption. For many this might not be an exciting subject. But thanks to this book it helps explain its relevance and history. Besides providing a background on encryption it highlights a story about a true hero of great genius. Unfortunately as the story unfolds he will be maligned and harassed until he ends his life, just because he was homosexual. Regardless of his choice of partners, his work and mind were brilliant.

An extremely readable history about the science of cryptography. Simon Singh transforms a daunting technology, designed to confuse, into a very understandable and highly interesting work about the underpinnings of some of the most crucial events in western history.

I thought the subject matter might be intriguing, and was extremely impressed with the 5-star average rating given by Amazon readers. The information presented certainly IS interesting, but I found the writing to be tedious and repetitive at times, which compells me to deduct stars. If you want your non-fiction to read like a novel, I'd choose something different. If you don't mind a bit of "textiness," I would recommend it. I certainly learned something new, which always worth a star!

I thought the subject matter might be intriguing, and was extremely impressed with the 5-star average rating given by Amazon readers. The information presented certainly IS interesting, but I found the writing to be tedious and repetitive at times, which compells me to deduct stars. If you want your non-fiction to read like a novel, I'd choose something different. If you don't mind a bit of "textiness," I would recommend it. I certainly learned something new, which always worth a star!

The book delivers on the promise inherent in its title. Dr. Singh traces cryptography from Ceaser's time (the Ceaser Cipher) to what lies in the future of this science: Quantum Cryptography. The material is presented in an engaging manner, and mathematical terms, when used, are first explained for the layman. To me, this was a very interesting read. For instance, I knew that the folks at Bletchley Park -- Turing, et al. -- were instrumental in cracking the Enigma, Germany's substitution and transposition cipher machine. However, I was not aware that they built upon the work of the Polish Biuro Szyfrow, especially one Martin Rejewski in particular (unexplicably, when Churchill formed Bletchley Park, Rejewski was absent from it.) Those practicing in the field of cryptography and security, will be absolutely fascinated with the chapters involving the breakthrough on public key cryptography by Diffie, Hellman, and Merkle. Their discovery had to wait until Rivest, Shamir and Adleman could come up with the RSA algorithm for factoring large primes to make public key cryptography feasible. Phil Zimmermann's aggregation of public key cryptography and RSA into PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) is also detailed, as is his struggle against the FBI, NSA, and the RSA corporation. Other rich details in the book include the use of the an American Indian dialect of Navajo to perform ciphering that proved to be unbreakable during WW II (this particular use of Navajo was also made into a movie starring Nicholas Cage -- Windtalkers.) I would recommend this book for anyone that has an interest in cryptography; it is eminently readable.

This is an interesting and surprisingly easy read, giving the reader a history of cryptography and predicting the next steps. It also includes tidbits on some of the interesting characters that played pivotal roles in the field.

Singh is entertaining and VERY knowledgeable on Crypto. He reviews all of the major cryptographic techniques, and gives a history of the subject that is pretty in depth. All in all, a terrific and educational read.

This book is one of those rare breeds: a non-fiction book that you just cannot put down. It is gripping to find your imagination piqued by the types of minds that tackle problems of this magnitude. References to enigma codebreaking by the allies in WW2 and the Navajo language used in the Pacific arena are no less mind-boggling than Mary Queen of Scots losing her head as her treason is uncovered form a coded letter. I loved this book. Well done, Simon Singh!

Author of
TThe Truth
About Cafffeine

I received this book as a gift. There are quite a few books on this subject on the market and this one is the best. I too could not put it down and finished it in 3 days. It's a huge book, a great resource that is well researched and written.. I have a few friends who've purchased this book and really loved it too. I can highly recommend this book

Author of
The Truth About
Caffeine

This book was amazing!!! I recently bought it for my uncle as a Christmas present, thinking he might enjoy it, but as I flipped through it, I realized I had to keep it for myself! I read the entire thing in 2 days. It is so intriguing and fascinating. There are even codes in the back you can break. I got the first one, and don't plan on stopping yet! This is a must have for anyone who has ever thought in passing, 'Codes are kinda cool' or anyone interested in a very intellectually stimulating book. It's great!

Marina Kushner
Author
The Truth About Caffeine: How Companies That Promote It Deceive Us and What We Can Do about It

Singh has done a wonderful job of making a dry subject fascinating. The history is amazing and well written. The technology of code making and code braking is quite complete, and could not be made more interesting of read. The end of the book may get too technical for the non-technical reader, but even they will be more than pleased with the first 3/4 of the book. The nature of the subject forces recent history to be left uncovered, but you will be amazed at what has recently become known from fifty years ago.

Simon Singh has done an excellent job of narrating the history of codes and ciphers, covering material in quite a comprehensive manner, yet explaining it in a fashion that even readers who are not particularly gifted in mathematics will understand. His narration of the (frequently military) history surrounding some important events in the history of cryptography added considerable interest for me; there's just enough of it to add another dimension without there being so much that it detracts from the main story. His decision to include the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics and Cretan Linear B script was a wise one, as well. As he notes, neither was an attempt to conceal the meanings, but the methods used are exactly parallel to many used in deciphering codes and ciphers.

Highly recommended.

This book is an excellent one that intertwines the history, strategy, and mathematics of those dedicated to encrypting messages and those dedicated to exposing the encryption strategy and thus the message. It explains the idea behind several kinds of encryption strategies starting with Mary Queen of Scots and how her personal involvement in the plot against Queen Elizabeth I of England was exposed when her correspondence that was encrypted with simple monoalphabetic substitution was decyphered.

This method was replaced with the polyalphabetic Vigenère square, which protected military and government dispatches for 250 years, until the Victorian polymath Charles Babbage, who believed that the cipher was flawed in some small way, set about the task of finding that flaw, and eventually did so.

Chapter 3 discusses how the invention of radio at the beginning of the 20th century enabled cryptanalysts to easily gather large amounts of intelligence, since anyone with an antenna could easily intercept enemy communications, thus driving the need for stronger encryption methods. This resulted in the "mechanisation of secrecy," the creation of machines to scramble messages beyond the manual abilities of human beings. This contributed to the public-key cryptography widely used today by businesses and governments.

The next chapter is about the Enigma machine, used by the Germans leading up to and during the Second World War, which performed a complex polyalphabetic substitution cipher. The book discusses how Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician who devoted himself to the war effort, helped to crack the Enigma code machines used by the Germans. Turing and his colleagues' breakthroughs prevented U-boat attacks and ultimately shortened World War II, but because of the British intelligence community's policy of maintaining secrecy for its operations, his important work in this field was never recognized.

"Language Barrier" discusses how the American military used Navajo Indians as code talkers because of the unique characteristics of their language. It also discusses the Rosetta Stone and how it was used to decode a lost language by using two other known languages.

"Alice and Bob Go Public" discusses the solution to the so-called key-distribution problem. It talks about how James Ellis, employed by the UK Government Communications Headquarters, worked out how to achieve effective public key cryptography several decades before American academics published their solutions, and what those solutions were.

In "Pretty Good Privacy" Singh talks about what sort of line that law enforcement agencies should take pertaining to civil liberties. This leads up to the story of Pretty Good Privacy and Phil Zimmermann's battle with the government.

The final chapter is about quantum cryptography. The advantage this method has over traditional methods is that the exchange of information can be shown to be secure in a very strong sense, without making assumptions about the intractability of certain mathematical problems. Even when you assume the presence of hypothetical eavesdroppers with unlimited computing power, the laws of physics guarantee (probabilistically) that the secret key exchange will be secure, given a few other assumptions. I found Singh's explanation of this topic a bit more difficult to grasp than those in previous chapters.

I highly recommend this book as a starting point for anyone interested in the subject of cryptography. Even if you are not interested in going any further with this subject, it is an accessible and interesting read.

Mr. Singh performs a whirlwind tour of cyphers in "The Code Book". A good light introduction to crypto.

This book is a wonderful blend of technical writing with allied history, story telling and myth. The author traces the evolution of code making and code breaking from historical times with interesting stories regarding their development and usage and the great minds who were behind the codes.

The author has a flair of explaining technical stuff to lay people. It was a pleasure to read through the technical details of codes right from the Vignerre cipher right upto RSA. There is even a chapter on decryption of Egyptian hieroglyphics and other lost languages, even though technically they are not codes (since they were not used to hide information). I loved the description of the German code machine used in WW2 and how it was broken, quite ingeniously, by Polish and British cryptoanalysts. There are even some exercises for budding cryptoanalysts.

In summary, this book gets a wholehearted thumbs up and I now plan to read other books of the same author.

As someone who reads technical writing both for a living and for fun, I have to say that this book is perhaps the very best example of technical writing I've ever seen. Singh is able to explain some fairly complicated mathematics to the lay audience beautifully, and weave in great stories all the way through.

Simon Singh provides a more than clear examination into the history and fundamentals of cryptography. The information is presented in such a way that people of all interests can enjoy the subject. Singh not only covers the beginnings of cryptography in certain regions but also helps to place them in their historical context. He clearly examines the effects of cryptography on multiple aspects of life then and even now. The book not only describes the origins of cryptography but also the mathematical, mechanical, and analytical aspects of such a diverse topic. But don't be too alarmed at the presence of all these features. Singh's explanations are lucid and concise and leave the reader feeling as if they fully understand the principles of cryptography.

The Code Book provides a comprehensive view of cryptographic technology. If you are looking to becoming a master of cryptography, this book along with Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" is a must. While the Code Book is not a technical and mechanical tome like Applied Cryptography, it does give some of the basis in understanding how cryptographic functions from ancient to modern work. More importantly, by giving historical accounts of the art of message encoding, Singh manages to present the world of cryptography as the tool of politics and war that makes the U.S. government classify many cryptographic algorithms as weapons. He also has some wonderful examples of the impact of cryptography on archeology and science.

This book, while a little dated, will bring most people up to speed on code breaking. The Code Book also contains a Cipher challenge which consisted of 10 encrypted messages placed at the end of the book. This challenge was completed on October 7th 2000. Those who wish to find out how the team cracked the codes can go to http://www.simonsingh.com/Cipher_Challenge.html

This book is FANTASTIC. It details the cat and mouse game between codemakeres and codebreakers in a very lucid and intersting manner. It will make you appreciate the role of intelligence in warfare even more, and you will know about people and facilities who have influenced the course of world war 2 as much as aircrafts and battleships.

This book really very interesting and informative and anyone who just wanna read a book just for kiling time should grab this one.

Very fun and easy book to read.It is not just about codes and how to learn them.It goes back in the history and talls u all inportant events where the codes playd inportant part.It one of those books u read in a 5 days or less.If you are into codes or history buy this book

Singh has penchant for unraveling the beauty of cryptography together with the intrigue of classified historical events.

He presents cyrptography as a tug of war between code breakers and code makers.

Starting with basic monoalphabetic substitution ciphers he shows how these were broken by the arabs using frequency analysis.

This led to the polyalphabetic ciphers which were eventually broken.

He delves into the impractical but unbreakable one time pad cipher and then the enigma apparatus explaining it in detail.

He hints at the key distribution problems which culminates in the discovery of asymmetric cryptography ( different keys for encryption and decryption ) and the public keys which are in widespread use today.

He concludes with a look at the future of cryptography...quantum cryptography.

Each concept is carefully and lucidly dealt with and a few exercises are provided at the end.

I was touched by his acknowledgement of many great cryptographers who for decades lived in anonymity never able to reveal their contributions.

I bought this book because I loved Simon Singh's "Fermat's Engima." In that book, he turned what might come across as a rather dry subject into a riveting tale by bringing the people involved to full life. He explains the complicated mathematics in a way that makes the discussion easily understood.

In the case of "The Code Book," I already found the topic of codes to be fascinating, and Singh's talent for making complicated subjects comprehensible is in full form. His story-telling ability once again shines.

There's quite a bit of interesting and well-written historical overview, from the codes of Mary Queen of Scots up to the cutting edge science of quantum cryptography. The book is absolutely riveting on the subject of Engima and the Allies' quest to break it.

I started off the book with a basic fascination for the mechanics of codes, and by the end I was drawn into the stories and people behind the codes.

Excellent and fascinating reading.

as (they say) Albert Einstein said (referring to some conceptual framework in quantum mechanic (which BTW he didn't initially get right)). Anyone reading the "popular" (quite a bit biased/peppered) account of the WWII and the parallel "word/messaging"/intelligence war, might come to the conclusion that the amusing British secrecy games and the D-day invasion, delayed by the US. Gov. to the point you couldn't tell if it was tactic or strategic, won it. When the NAZI army were being defeated and bent to the ground by the "Red" army on the Eastern front, which was actually the turning point of the war.
.
In fact you may find books out there which would have a narrative more into trying to show you how the NAZIs would have won WWII. Ach! Yeah, Sure!
.
Most wrong things (or at the point they get to be wrong) naturally come to terms by themselves to a large extent and within. Even if you may hear some people say stuff like Pr. Ronald Reagan defeated communism with his silly star war arm race or Pr. Bush "liberated/democratized" Iraq (I bet there are books about that too), I think the two main factors that brought to an end NAZI Germany were:
.
1._ their most basic premises were wrong, both in "their mind" (culturally speaking) and "on the ground" (as it so similarly happened with Pr. Bush's Iraq's engagement)
.
2._ the Red army beat the hell out of pesky NAZI offensive
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Also Mr Singh, do you really believe the British "intelligence" didn't know Alan Turing was gay? Really? Give me a break! They just used him as they would have anyone else. I found quite excessive, abusive and sad that his life was tormented to the point of committing suicide (or probably killed?) by the same people he so dutifully and wholeheartedly served. On the other hand I am glad that the Polish Mathematician Marian Rejewski took credit for having actually been the one who deciphered the so called freaking NAZIs "Enigma" machines.
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In general this is a -good- book directed at the masses not the specialist, but taking historical circumstances into consideration, the soap-opera-like writing style is more than half way off. The WWI primarily and most fundamentally was a very bloody historical reality not just a mathematical/secrecy play.
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I think it is worthy to recall that millions of people died/were killed in this large-scale nonsense, which as historically documented, was being performed already in full swing by the British empire in their colonial overseas territories, the only difference being that NAZIs were less imaginative and decided to throw the party home, right in Europe.
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It is also baffling to see the nonsensical stupidity by so-called "intelligence" services and "Deutschland ueber alles" mentality still happening in our times.
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otf