The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum CryptographyIn 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 you wonder how private that e-mail you just sent really is. |
Contents
The Cipher of Mary Queen of Scots | 1 |
Le Chiffre Indéchiffrable | 45 |
The Mechanization of Secrecy | 101 |
Cracking the Enigma | 143 |
The Language Barrier | 191 |
Alice and Bob Go Public | 243 |
Pretty Good Privacy | 293 |
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Common terms and phrases
A₁ Alice and Bob Alice's asymmetric cipher Babbage Beale ciphers began Bletchley Park Bob's breakthrough British Champollion cipher alphabet ciphertext codebook codebreakers codemakers communications crack cryptanalysts day key decipher decipherment decrypt Diffie digits disk enciphered encrypted message encryption enemy English Enigma machine example Figure French frequency analysis GCHQ German Greek H H H H P₁ Hellman hieroglyphics idea intercepted Internet key distribution keyword Linear Mary mathematics message key military Minoan monoalphabetic cipher monoalphabetic substitution cipher one-way function onetime pad operator P₁ H P₁ P₁ padlock photons plain alphabet plaintext plaintext letter polarized photons possible keys private key problem public key cryptography quantum computer quantum cryptography radio random Rejewski represented scrambler scrambler arrangement scrambler settings script secret sender sequence swapped syllable Table tion Turing unbreakable Ventris Vigenère cipher Vigenère square vowel words Zimmermann Σ Σ