The Code Book: How to Make It, Break It, Hack It, Crack It

It’s known as the science of secrecy. Cryptography: the encoding and decoding of private information. And it is history’s most fascinating story of intrigue and cunning. From Julius Caesar and his Caesar Cipher to the code used by Mary Queen of Scots and her conspiracy to the use of the Engima machine during the Second World War, Simon Singh follows the evolution of secret writing.

Accessible, compelling, and timely, this international bestseller, now adapted for young people, is sure to make readers see the past—and the future—in a whole new way.

From the Hardcover edition.Calling upon accounts of political intrigue and tales of life and death, author Simon Singh tells history’s most fascinating story of deception and cunning: the science of cryptography–the encoding and decoding of private information. Based on The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography, this version has been abridged and slightly simplified for a younger audience. None of the appeal for curious problem-solving minds has been lost, though. From Julius Caesar to the 10th-century Arabs; from Mary Queen of Scots to “Alice and Bob”; from the Germans’ Enigma machine to the Navajo code talkers in World War II, Singh traces the use of code to protect–and betray–secrecy. Moving right into the present, he describes how the Information Age has provided a whole new set of challenges for cryptographers. How private are your e-mail communications? How secure is sending your credit card information over the Internet? And how much secrecy will the government tolerate? Complex but highly accessible, The Code Book will make readers see the past–and the future–in a whole new light. (Ages 14 and older)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. The Cipher of Mary Queen of Scots
Chapter 2. The Anonymous Codebreaker
Chapter 3. The Mechanization of Secrecy
Chapter 4. The Language Barrier
Chapter 5. Alice and Bob Go Public
Chapter 6. Pretty Good Privacy