[Cryptography] Review: The Codebreaker, by David Kahn

[Dave Horsfall]

Blimey, but that was a tome and a half...  Over a thousand pages of fairly 
dense writing (with little mathematics involved).  I can't even begin to 
do it justice, so I'll just point out a few highlights.

Originally published in 1967, this edition is 1996, and covers material 
such as Enigma, Purple, the capture of the Pueblo, public-key crypto, etc, 
all of which were unknown at the time.

His breadth and depth of knowledge is immense, and he has a knack of 
recalling events as though he was actually present.  If there's anything 
that he didn't mention then it probably wasn't worth it; well, except 
possibly for ROT-13 (unknown in 1967).  His prose tends to be a bit 
flowery at times, but he's anything but dry.

Examples of topics include the Egyptian hierpglyphics (there are several 
versions), the Rosetta Stone, Linear B, the Voynich Manuscript, whether 
Bacon wrote Shakespeare's stuff, etc.

No Such Agency doesn't escape scrutiny (there's even a photograph of the 
building!), but not in as much depth as Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace"; I 
haven't reviewed the latter because it's more NSA than crypto.

I have no idea how he had so much access to so much material.

All in all, it definitely belongs on your shelf, right next to Schneier.

-- Dave