Description
Book SynopsisWith a new chapter on computer security issues, this updated and revised history of codes and codebreaking takes the reader from the protocryptography of Egyptian Pharoah Khnuumhotep II through to the speculations of scientists solving messages from outer space.
Trade ReviewThe Washington Post Kahn has produced a tour de force...The volume is an anthology of a hundred detective stories, one more ingenious than the last, and all real, central to the fate of armies and kingdoms....Magnificent.
The Christian Science Monitor A literary blockbuster...for many evening of gripping reading, no better choice can be made than this book.
Time Perhaps the best and most complete account of cryptography yet published.
The New York Times Book Review A notable achievement...Mr. Kahn has presented the specialist and the general public with a lavishly comprehensive introduction to a subject of basic significance for both.
Prepublication National Security Agency Evaluation, now declassified The book in its entirelty constitutes the most publicly revealing picture that has ever been presented of U.S. Sigint activities and the agencies engaged in this field.
Table of ContentsCONTENTSPreface to the Revised Edition
Preface
A Few Words
1. One Day of Magic
THE PAGENT OF CRYPTOLOGY
2. The First 3,000 Years
3. The Rise of the West
4. On the Origin of a Species
5. The Era of the Black Chambers
6. The Contribution of the Dilettantes
7. Crises of the Union
8. The Professor, the Soldier, and the Man on Devil's Island
9. Room 40
10. A War of Intercepts: I
11. A War of Intercepts: II
12. Two Americans
13. Secrecy for Sale
14. Duel in the Ether: The Axis
15. Duel in the Ether: Neutrals and Allies
16. Censors, Scramblers, and Spies
17. The Scrutable Orientals
18. Russkaya Kriptologiya ("Russian Cryptology")
19. N.S.A.
SIDESHOWS
20. The Anatomy of Cryptology
21. Heterogeneous Impulses
22. Rumrunners, Businessmen, and Makers of Non-secret Codes
23. Ciphers in the Past Tense
24. The Pathology of Cryptology
PARACRYPTOLOGY
25. Ancestral Voices
26. Messages from Outer Space
THE NEW CRYPTOLOGY
27. Cryptology Goes Public
Bibliography
Notes to Text
Acknowledgments
Notes to Illustrations
Index
