The Code Book: The Secret History of Codes and Code-breaking

by SimonSingh (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2002

  $12.43

  The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography From the best-selling author of Fermat's Last Theorem, The Code Book is a history of man's urge to uncover the secrets of codes, from Egyptian puzzles to modern day computer encryptions. As in Fermat's Last Theorem, Simon Singh brings life to an anstonishing story of puzzles, codes, languages and riddles that reveals man's continual pursuit to disguise and uncover, and to work out the secret languages of others. Codes have influenced events throughout history, both in the stories of those who make them and those who break them. The betrayal of Mary Queen of Scots and the cracking of the enigma code that helped the Allies in World War II are major episodes in a continuing history of cryptography. In addition to stories of intrigue and warfare, Simon Singh also investigates other codes, the unravelling of genes and the rediscovery of ancient languages and most tantalisingly, the Beale ciphers, an unbroken code that could hold the key to a $20 million treasure.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1999

  $4.20

  The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography From the bestselling author of Fermat's Last Theorem, The Code Book is an enthralling history of codes and code-breaking from Egyptian puzzles to modern day computer encryptions. Since humans began writing, they have been writing in code. This quest for secrecy has often changed the course of history. In The Code Book, Simon Singh offers a sweeping view of the subject of encryption as well as its more dramatic effects on the outcome of wars, monarchies, and individual lives. Included in this fascinating book is the story of Mary Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code and put to death by Queen Elizabeth. Also recounted is the history of the Beale Ciphers, created in the early nineteenth century to obscure the location of a treasure in gold, buried somewhere in Virginia. Singh also traces the monumental improvements in code-making and -breaking brought on by World Wars I and II, the outcomes of which could have been very different without the brilliance of the Allied code breakers. Now, in the Information Age, the possibility of a truly unbreakable code looms large and cryptography has become one of the major debates of our times. Simon Singh investigates the challenges to personal privacy that technology and the ways we communicate today have upon everyday lives. Dramatic, compelling, and remarkably far reaching, this is a book that will forever alter your view of history, what drives it, and how private that e-mail you just sent really is.

• New

  paperback
  

  $18.67