4 ms·
The Code Book by Simon Singh[1]. The book is very old, first published in 1999, but I did not know about it till my colleague brought it to work recently. The
by ruslan 3y ago
The Code Book by Simon Singh[1].
The book is very old, first published in 1999, but I did not know about it till my colleague brought it to work recently. The following stories are very interesting and read as detective novel:
1) how Enigma worked and how it's code was cracked;
2) how Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered, which appeared to be very common to Coptic language[2];
3) how Linear B writing decoded[3], which appeared to be ancient Greek.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Code_Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Code_Book
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_language
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B
- pallas_athena 3y ago+1, the very book that sparked my interest in cryptography, highly recommended
- coffeepancakes 3y ago> The book is very old, first published in 1999 I beg your pardon! 1999 is not very old! Especially in terms of books. It does look really interesting, thanks for sharing.
- croo 3y ago+100. I read it 3 or 4 times. For the most part it reads like a great detective story and/or colorful history book. Meanwhile you will understand in depth how all the basic shit in cryptography works, how did they crack it and its history: ROT13,ENIGMA,OTP,PGP,DES,AES, what are public and private keys and digital signatures, what the hell is quantum cryptography... everything gets told in a perfect ELI5 manner without any knowledge prerequisite and its so damn interesting its hard to put down. All in historical order, with names, stories, previous building blocks, interesting trivias... perfect book, 10/10.
- tgv 3y agoSingh's Fermat's Last Theorem is a better book, IMO.
- ruslan 3y agoOh, did know there's another one from him. Thanks!
- bazmattaz 3y agoOh my I read this book as a young adult and it blew my mind. Got my interested in cryptography and such. Great book