The Code Book

Genuinely fun and learned a lot. Cryptography's history, progress, and so much more.

on HN, 2023

The Code Book are very interesting reads if you are into Mathematics. They are both written very well and you don't need to know too much of Mathematics to understand it.

on HN, 2016

He's an excellent author who begins all of his books with the premise that the lay person will be reading it. He even makes this explicit in Fermat's Last Enigma.

on HN, 2016

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:

on HN, 2023

If you're really into the history of cryptography, this book is for you.

on HN, 2017

It's just a good read that covers cryptography and message hiding throughout history. Probably a solid book for somebody around high school age.

on HN, 2017

The Code Book: The Evolution Of Secrecy From Mary, Queen Of Scots To Quantum Cryptography, if you have a thing for cryptography.

on HN, 2014

is another famed popular science book that offers a non-technical introduction to cryptography and its history, there's also an indie game [1] Cypher by Matthew Brown (2018) inspirited by the book.

on HN, 2019

The Code Book by Simon Singh is an excellent history of the history of cryptography/cryptanalysis presented as periods through history where the pendulum swung between giving the edge to the code makers or breakers.

on HN, 2022

He has an amazing ability to go really deep into what he's explaining. No hand waving over the details. And yet, it's so very readable.

on HN, 2017

"The Code Book" is a great history of cryptography and "Fermat's Last Theorem" is a good history of the problem and its eventual solution.

on HN, 2016

I read it in high school and would agree, it got me really excited about cryptography and espionage throughout history, no undoubtedly helped me discover infosec and cryptography.

on HN, 2022