The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography"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."--From the Publisher. |
Contents
The Cipher of Mary Queen of Scots | 1 |
Le Chiffre Indéchiffrable | 45 |
The Mechanisation of Secrecy | 101 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
Alice and Bob Alice's American asymmetric cipher Babbage Babington Beale ciphers began Bletchley Park Bob's bombes breakthrough British cartouche century Champollion cipher alphabet ciphertext codebook codebreakers codemakers communications consonant contained crack cryptanalysts day-key decipher decipherment decrypt detector Diffie digits disc e-mail enciphered encipherment encrypted message encryption enemy English Enigma machine example Figure French frequency analysis GCHQ German Greek Hellman hieroglyphics idea intercepted Internet key distribution keyword Linear Mary mathematical message-key military Minoan monoalphabetic cipher monoalphabetic substitution cipher one-time pad one-way function operator padlock photons plain alphabet plaintext plaintext letter polarised photons possible keys private-key problem public-key cryptography quantum computer quantum cryptography radio random Rejewski represented result scrambler scrambler arrangement scrambler settings script secret sender sequence swapped syllable symbols Table theory tion Turing unbreakable Ventris Vigenère cipher Vigenère square vowel wire-taps words Zimmermann