The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet | 
 enlarge | Author: David Kahn
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $75.00
Buy Used: $24.78
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Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 46807
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Rev Sub
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1200
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.8
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 2.5
ISBN: 0684831309
Dewey Decimal Number: 652.8
EAN: 9780684831305
ASIN: 0684831309
Publication Date: December 5, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Visible shelf wear -- may have some notes/markings on pages
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Amazon.com Review
"Few false ideas have more firmly gripped the minds of so many intelligent men than the one that, if they just tried, they could invent a cipher that no one could break," writes David Kahn in this massive (almost 1,200 pages) volume. Most of The Codebreakers focuses on the 20th century, especially World War II. But its reach is long. Kahn traces cryptology's origins to the advent of writing. It seems that as soon as people learned how to record their thoughts, they tried to figure out ways of keeping them hidden. Kahn covers everything from the theory of ciphering to the search for "messages" from outer space. He concludes with a few thoughts about encryption on the Internet.
Product Description
The magnificent, unrivaled history of codes and ciphers -- how they're made, how they're broken, and the many and fascinating roles they've played since the dawn of civilization in war, business, diplomacy, and espionage -- updated with a new chapter on computer cryptography and the Ultra secret. Man has created codes to keep secrets and has broken codes to learn those secrets since the time of the Pharaohs. For 4,000 years, fierce battles have been waged between codemakers and codebreakers, and the story of these battles is civilization's secret history, the hidden account of how wars were won and lost, diplomatic intrigues foiled, business secrets stolen, governments ruined, computers hacked. From the XYZ Affair to the Dreyfus Affair, from the Gallic War to the Persian Gulf, from Druidic runes and the kaballah to outer space, from the Zimmermann telegram to Enigma to the Manhattan Project, codebreaking has shaped the course of human events to an extent beyond any easy reckoning. Once a government monopoly, cryptology today touches everybody. It secures the Internet, keeps e-mail private, maintains the integrity of cash machine transactions, and scrambles TV signals on unpaid-for channels. David Kahn's The Codebreakers takes the measure of what codes and codebreaking have meant in human history in a single comprehensive account, astonishing in its scope and enthralling in its execution. Hailed upon first publication as a book likely to become the definitive work of its kind, The Codebreakers has more than lived up to that prediction: it remains unsurpassed. With a brilliant new chapter that makes use of previously classified documents to bring the book thoroughly up to date, and to explore the myriad ways computer codes and their hackers are changing all of our lives, The Codebreakers is the skeleton key to a thousand thrilling true stories of intrigue, mystery, and adventure. It is a masterpiece of the historian's art.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 26 more reviews...
 If you want to know more... join NSA... November 22, 2008
I first heard about this book when I was in high school learning about simple encryption (Caesar ciphers); my teacher had read the 1967 version and highly recommended it. The book came back into my life during a college symposium on the Enigma machine - again, it was highly recommended (this particular version). When I got the book, I was blown away... while cryptography purists might rate the book lower for its lack of mathematics, it contained a (relatively) complete overview of the history of codemaking and codebreaking in one package.
Later, in my professional years, I worked with folks from "No Such Agency" who either 1) knew the book and highly recommended it or 2) never heard of it, so I recommended it to them. I'm a big fan of signals intelligence (SIGINT) readings (technical and non-technical) and intelligence history books. If you are serious about the study of cryptography, learn about its origins and key moments in history by reading Kahn's "The Codebreakers." When you decide you want to "do" what is mentioned in the book... join the National Security Agency. We'll be waiting for you...
 Not For Programmers April 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was recommended to me as the authoritative and best introduction to cryptography for anyone interested in Encryption. I'm a programmer, and that particular recommendation didn't take my profession into account. Apparently.
This is a history book. Sure, I expected to read some historical context. I expected to learn that the first encryption techniques were simple dictionary ciphers. I expected to learn about Da Vinci's reverse writing. I expected to learn about rotating keys and the Enigma machine.
But that's not what I found in this book. This book exemplifies why I hated history in school. This is a book for the type of pseudo-intellectual who prefers to learn about people who know something special, rather than learning something special, themselves. Seriously, how can anyone read a book this big about a subject (cryptography) that provides them with absolutely no usable knowledge on that topic. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
Set the Bar May 10, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is an astonising piece of work. It came out just when books on some previously hidden areas of WWII intelligence such as the Double Cross counterintelligence effort and the MAGIC Sigint system were starting to appear in print. Given that SIGINT/COMINT/ELINT were/are among the closest held areas of intelligence, what the author managed to do at that time is nothing short of breathtaking. From outlining what codes and cyphers are and what makes them difficult to read, to a chapter and verse depiction of the practical results of wartime codebreaking, the author covers the waterfront. Has not been outdone to date. "The Puzzle Palace", for example, is strictly junior varsity compared to Kahn's work. This book belongs in the library of every student of military affairs, intelligence and foreign affairs.
Outstanding History of Cryptography up to 1965 March 25, 2006
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
This massive, exhaustively-researched book by David Kahn examines the HISTORY of cryptography from the dawn of civilization to the darkness of the Cold War. He starts an introductory bow to capture readers' attention with the Magic story (American decryption of Japanese WWII codes). Then, Kahn traces the cryptologic developments from the early most rudimentary monalphabetic substitution systems to polyalphabetics, codes, transposition ciphers, enciphering devices (e.g. checkerboards, grille ciphers, one-time pads, one-time tapes, ciphering cylinders, voice modulators, etc.), deciphering systems, and all the governmental organizations devoted to enciphering and deciphering activities.
His investigations cover Babylonian cuneiform, Roman cipher systems (e.g. the famed Caesar cipher), an entire host of Renaissance cryptographers and systems, Englightenment-era black chambers, British amateur contributions (e.g. Playfair cipher), American Civil War transposition systems, telegraphic codes, French military ciphers, and the communication cipher used during the Dreyfus affair.
The book then devotes about 2/3 of the book to modern cryptographic systems used from 1914 to 1965 (the book was published in 1967). Some of the WWI-era subjects treated in this section are Britain's WWI Room 40, the unusual ADFGVX German cipher, WWI battlefield cipher and code systems. Between the wars, Kahn describes the American Black Chamber, the advent of rotor machines (e.g. Engima, Hagelin, Hebern), the rise of mathematical/statistical analysis, the US Magic decryption program, the extraordinarily successful Soviet cipher systems, and quite a thorough examination of all WWII-era cryptographic activities.
The last few chapters of the book are devoted to describing the NSA, the chimeric search for Shakespearean hidden messages, pigpen ciphers, Prohibition-era rumrunners, numbers runners, visual telegraphy, the decryption of Linear B/hieroglyphics, potential SETI coding systems, and a very short brief on DES.
Bar none, this is the one book to own on cryptographic history up to 1965. (This is not a cryptology textbook, however.) Kahn's writing style and subjects are always engaging and packed full with comprehensive information. Kahn reveals that almost every cipher system ever invented (with the significant exception of one-time pads/tapes) has been broken - most surprisingly quickly. This is a lesson that any organization using radio (including mobil phones) and public facilities (e.g. internet, PSTN) to communicate definitely ought to realize. This is a must read for anyone interested in cryptologic history. Outstanding!
For curious on criptography history March 17, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Big book. Great, as expected. The very first part of the book seems quite separated from the rest. It appears as a long introduction, probably too much detailed. The rest of the book is written in clean english understandable also for non mother tongue readers.
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