Been meaning to read this for about 20 years
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I finally read and completed the book, The Code Book: The Secrets Behind Codebreaking[^]. It was published back in 2002 and I read the first chapter but then stopped. The thing is, because this book has so much history of cryptography/cryptology it is amazingly current. I've read quite a few books now and this one really covers the entire history of codes and cracking codes. It's actually even better than I thought it was going to be. Have you read it? It's absolutely fantastic.
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I finally read and completed the book, The Code Book: The Secrets Behind Codebreaking[^]. It was published back in 2002 and I read the first chapter but then stopped. The thing is, because this book has so much history of cryptography/cryptology it is amazingly current. I've read quite a few books now and this one really covers the entire history of codes and cracking codes. It's actually even better than I thought it was going to be. Have you read it? It's absolutely fantastic.
It looks very interesting. Cryptography has long been an interest of mine. The second program I ever wrote was handling a simple substitution cipher in BASIC on an HP 3000 using a Teletype. That was in 1974.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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It looks very interesting. Cryptography has long been an interest of mine. The second program I ever wrote was handling a simple substitution cipher in BASIC on an HP 3000 using a Teletype. That was in 1974.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
If you've written an algorithm like that, you'll definitely enjoy the book. About 14 years ago I wrote little encryptor which used XOR to "encrypt" and "decrypt" user data which was then saved as Hex bytes in a file. It was a silly thing just to make sure the user didn't screw up the data. But it also taught me a lot about how difficult it is to create true encryption and how easy it is to decrypt data. Also, as you read the entire history of encryption in this book you will discover that basically everything has been hacked by applying frequency analysis and the point there is : Randomize your data! Easier said than done. :-D
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If you've written an algorithm like that, you'll definitely enjoy the book. About 14 years ago I wrote little encryptor which used XOR to "encrypt" and "decrypt" user data which was then saved as Hex bytes in a file. It was a silly thing just to make sure the user didn't screw up the data. But it also taught me a lot about how difficult it is to create true encryption and how easy it is to decrypt data. Also, as you read the entire history of encryption in this book you will discover that basically everything has been hacked by applying frequency analysis and the point there is : Randomize your data! Easier said than done. :-D
It sounds very interesting. :thumbsup: Several years ago I revisited that simple cypher and adapted it to encrypt our application's user permission file and it worked pretty well.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
