The Code Book

This one I was LOVIN' but it's going on ice, since I now own it as a used physical book - i.e. a book that I will only get to on digital sabbaths (which are rare these days). But some day. SOME DAY.

For beginners like myself this was a great read! The explanations are nicely done and easy to understand and the author knows how to keep the readers interest. I greatly enjoyed it and the use of cryptography mentioned in the book was interesting as well.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Absolutely fascinating. I recommend this to any of my friends on the geeky end as it has lots of juicy technical bits. That said, don't be scared off by that as one could skim those bits and still really enjoy the historical aspects.

The best introduction available for the world of cryptography.
it really teaches you how to make it, hack it, crack it.

This was a very enjoyable read. Singh takes the reader along on a journey through cryptographic history. He explains the fundamentals of cryptography in a relative simple way, together with some great anekdotes. People literally lost their heads because of cracked codes.

The book was published in 1999, hence the narrative stops there. Simon Singh never update the book for the first 2 decades of the 21st century. Maybe something for its 25th anniversary?

For me this was 4,5 stars an updated version could reel in the last 0,5 star.
Highly recommended.

Very readable but downgraded my rating because it is now unfortunately a bit out of date

On the surface of it, The Code Book is a very unglamorous book - a somewhat analytical book filled with technical jargon on the history of cryptography, starting from its first mentions in written record to the somewhat confusing introduction to quantum computing and quantum cryptography.
But on a deeper glance, Simon Singh reveals himself as a passionate and intense geek who wants to explain how our communication is encrypted and decrypted to laypeople, who might not know what algorithms and modulus functions are but who deserve to know what cryptography is. It is telling that most of the concepts he teaches are through stories - why a particular cypher was invented and how history could have been much different if a few specific messages were still secure. It was heartening to note that even knowing all the basics - there was a lot of stuff to absorb - including the inner workings of Enigma used in WW2, the decryption of Linear B, an extinct Mediterranean language.
The Code Book's ending chapters have dated horribly, though. Simon envisioned a future where the public would need cryptography because they would be emailing forms containing their credit card information to retailers for e-commerce. Amazon took this concept to a hitherto unforeseen level. Moore's Law has stagnated, the debate on cryptography has changed immensely, for better or worse - and quantum computing remains as nascent as ever. Still, the basics of cryptography have remained the same - for that alone; this is a fine read.

Beautiful insight into cryptography throughout history (up until 1999.). Much more interesting than I anticipated.

The most beautiful part is foreshadowing bitcoin, which today stands strong on the grounds of breakthrough concepts explained throughout the second half of the book.

I may have been a software engineer until a few years and a graduate in it, but I've never actually been much of a tech nerd. So, the subject matter of this book is not particularly something I would gravitate towards. But the author of The Ivory Key, Akshaya Raman mentioned that this was one of the books that she used for research for her debut and I was immediately interested because TIK was a fun YA fantasy with lots of puzzle solving. I knew I had to read this one.

This one took a while to finish because while it's very fascinating, it's also not the binge reading kind. One chapter a day to read and process all the information was the perfect way to get through this one. And I was amazed at how the author framed the whole narrative. This is not a technical book about cryptography but there are good enough explanations to understand the various ciphers he talks about. But I loved the history part of this book, from the earliest substitution ciphers that were developed to the recent RSA /PGP encryption that revolutionized the discussion about the importance of digital privacy. The chapters on the trail of Mary Queen of Scots, Vigenère Cipher, the creation and breaking of Enigma during WWII, the many people who especially worked under the guise of secrecy and never received credit for their many contributions to their countries, and the still unbroken Beale ciphers (and it's corresponding unfound treasure), were all super fun to read about and I thought the author explained them in a very engaging manner.

However, the little diversion the author took from cryptography and talked about the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs as well as the Pre-Hellenic language Linear B were my favorites. I've always been very interested in reading about archeology and the art of finding clues about history through the artifacts found on digs. So the complete process of how the Egyptian language was first thought about and how long it took to be deciphered was very cool. But the story of Linear B and how many decades and people from different backgrounds it took for it be deciphered was engrossing and I loved it. Even though this part of the book wasn't related to codemaking or codebreaking, it was enthralling to see how ideas of cryptography were used to finally crack the mysteries of these ancient kingdoms.

To conclude, this was a very engrossing read. I think anyone interested in the topic of codes and ciphers would enjoy this book, especially the readers like me who are more fascinated by the history of this technology as well as the people who are responsible for the advances we have made in cryptography, rather than the highly technical aspects of it. The author does include a huge reading list and bibliography at the end, so I'm sure every kind of reader will find something they like in this well researched and excellently narrated book.

Otra obra maestra del señor Singh. Coincido con una reseña que hay aquí en Goodreads: esto es porno para geeks.

About the history of encryption, with sometimes quite technical explanations offset by some memorable stories, like how the US used Navajos to communicate on the battlefield, in lieu of an unbreakable code.

Fascinating for anyone with who's even slightly geeky. The author makes this complex subject comprehensible and interesting, as he traces the history of codemakers vs codebreakers.