The Code Book: How to Make It, Break It, Hack It, Crack It (for young people)

✍ Scribed by Simon Singh

• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 273
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Calling upon accounts of political intrigue and tales of life and death, author Simon Singh tells historys most fascinating story of deception and cunning: the science of cryptography--the encoding and decoding of private information. Based on The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography, this version has been abridged and slightly simplified for a younger audience. None of the appeal for curious problem-solving minds has been lost, though. From Julius Caesar to the 10th-century Arabs from Mary Queen of Scots to «Alice and Bob» from the Germans Enigma machine to the Navajo code talkers in World War II, Singh traces the use of code to protect--and betray--secrecy. Moving right into the present, he describes how the Information Age has provided a whole new set of challenges for cryptographers. How private are your e-mail communications? How secure is sending your credit card information over the Internet? And how much secrecy will the government tolerate? Complex but highly accessible, The Code Book will make readers see the past--and the future--in a whole new light.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
The Code Book - HOW TO MAKE IT, BREAK IT, HACK IT, CRACK IT......Page 4
Copyright - ISBN: 0385730624......Page 5
CONTENTS......Page 8
INTRODUCTION......Page 10
1. The Cipher of Mary Queen of Scots: The birth of cryptography, the substitution cipher and the invention of codebreaking by frequency analysis......Page 14
2. The Anonymous Codebreaker: The Vigenère cipher, why cryptographers seldom get credit for their breakthroughs and a tale of buried treasure......Page 60
3. The Mechanization of Secrecy: The Zimmermann telegram, the Enigma machine and how cryptography changed the courses of World Wars I and II......Page 104
4. The Language Barrier: The impenetrability of unknown languages, the Navajo code talkers of World War II and the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs......Page 161
5. Alice and Bob Go Public: Modern cryptography, the solution to the so-called key-distribution problem and the secret history of nonsecret encryption......Page 189
6. Pretty Good Privacy: The politics of privacy, the future of cryptography and the quest for an uncrackable code......Page 230
THE CODEBREAKER’S CHALLENGE......Page 252
APPENDIX A: The Opening of A Void by Georges Perec translated by Gilbert Adair......Page 254
APPENDIX B: Some Elementary Tips for Frequency Analysis......Page 255
Appendix C: The So-Called Bible Code......Page 257
APPENDIX D: The Pigpen Cipher......Page 258
APPENDIX E: The Mathematics of RSA......Page 259
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 262
FURTHER READING......Page 264
PICTURE CREDITS......Page 269
INDEX......Page 270