The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

Confronted with the prospect of defeat, the Allied cryptanalysts had worked night and day to penetrate German ciphers. It would appear that fear was the main driving force, and that adversity is one of the foundations of successful codebreaking.

In the information age, the fear that drives cryptographic improvements is both capitalistic and libertarian--corporations need encryption to ensure that their secrets don't fall into the hands of competitors and regulators, and ordinary people need encryption to keep their everyday communications private in a free society. Similarly, the battles for greater decryption power come from said competitors and governments wary of insurrection.

The Code Book is an excellent primer for those wishing to understand how the human need for privacy has manifested itself through cryptography. Singh's accessible style and clear explanations of complex algorithms cut through the arcane mathematical details without oversimplifying. --Therese Littleton

Product Description
In his first book since the bestselling Fermat's Enigma, Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy.

Throughout the text are clear technical and mathematical explanations, and portraits of the remarkable personalities who wrote and broke the world's most difficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history and what drives it. It will also make yo wonder how private that e-mail you just sent really is.

Singh has done a very nice job of demonstrating how deep an impact cryptography has on history. He opens the book by recounting Mary Queen of Scots' conspiracy to have Queen Elizabeth murdered and how she attempted to use encryption to cloak her intentions. It was a very exciting way to open the book.

Singh has found the right combination of technical detail, historical detail, and character development.

Singh's explanation of how the German WWII Enigma functioned is exceptional. He made it very easy (and fun) to understand.

Singh's last chapter is also very neat on the subject of quantum cryptography. Though I have a BS in computer science, I'm no physics genius and Singh did a nice job of making (what I consider) difficult physics concepts easy to understand and of showing how they can be applied to modern cryptography.

Although I don't know a thing about "Fermat's last theorem", I've been so pleased with Singh's writing style that I'm considering reading that book also just to see what it is all about.

If you like codes/ciphers and want to read about their impact on history without reading a thousand pages then get this book. You'll be happy you did.


Compelling material wrapped in interesting stories   March 30, 2000
Douglas Welzel (Seattle, WA)
46 out of 48 found this review helpful

It took me a while to finding to the time to read this because I was expecting a rather dry book on cryptography. The subject was somewhat interesting to me, but I didn't feel like plodding through a long book on the subject.

Once I started reading I realized The Code Book was totally different. Singh takes you on a tour of the history of cryptography through the history of the world. You will find that cryptography was an unexpected key element in several historical events.

Through the entire history, Singh's writing is exceptionally clear and easy to follow. The material in the book is accessible to all levels of reader -- even those with no knowledge of cryptography.


A great read and a little more than just codes   December 13, 1999
anthony c. iaccio (USA)
61 out of 63 found this review helpful

Mr. Singh traces the history of cryptography from its recorded inception in roman times up through current applications. While all of the chapters held my interest it was Mr. Singh's work in chapters 4 through 6 that I feel deserve particular note.

Chapter 4 deals with the war effort at Bletchley Park and the work on the Engima machine. Here Mr.Singh adds an additional dimension by providing some insight into the work of Alan Turning, the development of Colossus, the first (now reported) electronic programmable computer and the unrecognized cryptanalysts who broke Ultra and the other codes of WWII. Chapter 6 brings us up to present day cryptographic issues from RSA and PGP to philosophical issues of personal privacy in modern society with web centric commerce and online book reviews. At each step in the process Singh successfully combines the elements of a technical treatise with a human values and features. For those wanting to go a little further under the hood and look at the processes and algorithms in some of the codes mentioned in the text, several appendices at the end of the book should fill that yearning. I found the book informative and enjoyable to read.


Not Just About Codes   January 6, 2001
Michael J Edelman (Huntington Woods, MI USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I bought "The Code Book" because of my long fascination with codes and ciphers. While it does have a marvelous treatment of modern 20th century cryptography- including the best description of the German Enigma machine and WWII Bletchly Park decoding activities I've yet read- what really makes this book shine is all the marvelous historical material.

Most books on codes and ciphers begin with something like ancient Roman transpotion ciphers. Singh takes a different track. For him, what's most interesting is not the encoding- which is often a trivial process- but the attempts to break encrypted texts. To this end, Singh tells the story of the decypherment of Linear B, an ancient script that was for decades in the 19th century perhaps the greatest puzzle confronting scholars. The tale of the decipherment of Linear B is not only a gripping and fascinating tale in and of itself, but also the perfect story to introduce the reader to the methodology of codebreaking.

From Linear B to quantum encryptation, Singh explains it clearly and fully; he's both skilled mathematician and gifted teacher. This is a marvelously entertaining and illiminating read, not only for those interested in the nuts and bolts of cryptography but for those curious about the historical context as well.


Fascinating evolution -the past, present and future of codes   December 19, 2000
A. Woodley (New Zealand)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

What great reading! I hope Singh comes up with a second book, he says that there were a great number of stories which he left out because there just wasn't room. The stories he used this time were so interesting.

Singh calls this a book on the evolution of codes and he presents it as that - showing the various developments of ciphers and codes from Caesar right through history including Mary Queen of Scots, Enigma &c. to today. His explanations are so simple - stripped of too much technical jargon to make those of us who aren't had no ideas about codes and codebreaking before (like me) - don't feel thick and inadequate.

I first heard this book read in chapters on the radio, and that was pretty good stuff - the book is so much better though. Singh is a great writer, I loved his initial scene setting with Mary, Queen of Scots. This book isn't just about codes, Singh also tells the story about the deciphering of various old ancient texts.

All the chapters flow on well from one another in the evolutionary way he describes - but you can read each chapter independently if you just want to browse through the book reading for a particular interest.