Rating: 
Summary: A Bad Suspense book, save your money
Review: After reading this book, I was disappointed and decided not to buy into his "D.V. Code" hype.
The reasons I don't like this book:
(1) The plot itself is very dull, the setting was very plain and no real suspense at al. Once I read that Susan Fletcher (the main character) stress over and over and over again that it is simply against the mathematical law to have unbreakable code, I immediately suspected that there are in fact no such a code. There must be a hack somehow setup the plot to make people buy into this hype and hide some other virus in his "code" to divert your attention. Once you are focusing on "breaking" of this code, his code may be doing far more damage than you first would thought of.
As you see, I guessed this from the very beginning, and it turned out that this is the plot! Damn! How cheasy is that!(2)The effort Susan's boyfriend (David Becker) trying to retrieve the ring from Spain is totally irrelevant to the story... You can simply skip reading all these short chapters and focus only on what's going on in the NSA building. The love story portraited was very plain and you have to be a real fool to believe David's luck to retrieve a ring back in that short time. (3)It's unbelievably stupid for the NSA deputy director to buy into a laid-off worker's dull plot and never suspect all those hours passed was simply some programming loop. The way he even contact Japanese businessman to try to sell the stuff make you feel like the author is trying to insult your intelligence. Just save your money. Trust me!
Rating:
Summary: two Bit hack? an Insult to any technophile or literary fan.
Review: I haven't read Da-vinci code, by this guy, but if this is an accurate indication of his work, OUCH.
His carachter develpoment is shoddy, and well never acurate, people are self assured, and assertive one moment, and pitifully skittish the next.
Thats a rough approximation.
His mangling and mauling of technical aspects for a "present day" technology sci -fi thriller is blatant. One minute reffering to fantisaical technology dreams, but then using arcane 30 year old techniques.
I am sorry, but this book I can not refer.
I am very dis-inclined to suggest this author.. I can't understand how the Da-Vinci Code could be such a big seller.
Rating: 
Summary: Digital Dumpster
Review: The measure of good fiction is how well it allows you to detach yourself from reality and believe in its premise. This, then, was Digital Fortress' first failing - it was unbelievable, no matter how hard I tried. Readability is another measure of good fiction and this book seemed very readable. However, I was stuck on an airplane for five hours when I read it, or I, probably, wouldn't have found it very readable. A good story would have made me believe an unbreakable code was possible. In this work, the very reason given as to why the code was "unbreakable" was the reason it was breakable. Even with no knowledge of codes or cyphers, any logical person would have been able to figure this out. Once this has been figured out, the rest of the book is entirely predictable. The book revealed that the author knew the names of many data encyrption methods, (he dropped names of all the "popular" encryption methods), and that he, probably, has a rudimentary understanding of how they work, (the statement that ULTRA transmissions encrypted by the Engima machine were always sent in groups of four letters showed how little he really knew about the practical application of cryptography). However, as soon as he had explained how things work in the real world of cryptography, he contradicted himself and started explaining things his way. Perhaps it would have worked, if one were willing forget everything they had just read. In reality, though, this book wasn't about cryptography. The code was just a foil. Unfortunately, the underlying story was so thin the author had to rely on cryptographic mumbo-jumbo to carry the book. When that didn't work, he should have been able to rely on his characters. Too bad his characters were more predictable than the story. From his ultra-conservative heroine who believed the government reading everyone's communications was necessary for our "protection," (who's character ranged from highly competent to hysterical in the same paragraph) to the ultra-libertarian who believed in an absolute right to privacy, the characters were boring and predictable. It would have helped if he had done some more character development, but, alas, he filled the book with meaningless cybertalk instead. The author's trivializing of the efforts of civil libertarians, such as the EFF, who work to preserve civil rights on the Internet was insulting and contributed nothing to the story. Finally, the one saving grace of the book was the introduction of the concept of "Quis custodient ipsos custodes," or "who guards the guards"? After seeing men dressed in black, carrying assault rifles with their fingers on the triggers in downtown Philadelphia this week, allegedly "protecting" us from some nebulous threat that was never defined, I think this is a question all of us need to ask ourselves.
Rating: 
Summary: A quick, fun read.
Review: This isn't literature at it's best and I'm not a computer geek so, it was just a quick and entertaining read and then it's on to the next one. Like renting an average movie, it was worth the paperback price for the day of entertainment. Happy New Year.
Rating:
Summary: Good Read, Bad Facts
Review: This book is about 90% fiction and there are many computer security claims made in this book are just not true. 1) A tape backup would have resolved all the issues with powering down the TRANSLATR,
2) Firewalls and the computers they protect never ever co-exist on the same computer. They are purposefully seperated for a demilitarized zone.
3) There are multiple layers of security in place. User IDs, passwords, enhanced passord authentication, access controls, encypted circuits.
4) Impossibe to create a non breakable encyption code.
5) Skipjack wasnt about a trojan horse, it was just a poorly designed and marketed algortim. There are some intriguing ideas about the NSAs ability to code break all communications.
Rating:
Summary: So many mistakes...
Review: It's sad to see a good premise turn into an average book. Like in most Brown's novels one big problems is the incorrectness of so many details. Here I couldn't find much of the aspects related to computers being correct. Most of them are simply flat-out wrong. Just an example: the "tracer" Susan send to know who is North-Dakota just cannot be done: if programs sent via email could execute themselves the e-world would be dead from virus attacks since a long time (the reciving end has to trigger such executables). In "the Da Vinci Code" most of the French translation was absolutely wrong. All those problems make the books fall apart.
Please Dan: get someone with a minimal knowledge of whatever topic you are dealing with to read your drafts! They could be so much better. I would say "Angel and Demons" is the best try so far, then "the Da Vinci code", but the two first are just very badly edited novels.
Rating:
Summary: Should have stayed in Dan's reject pile.
Review: A sad example of an author who has achieved success with a later work (Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons) succumbing to his agent's plea to dig through his rejected stuff for anything remotely marketable on the tail of his or her new found reputation. Yes there are early works that were rejected through bad timing or some arbitrary glitch and whose publication is a positive contribution to an author's body of work; Digital Fortress is not one of those. Those editors that rejected this rough draft in the nineties (note the1998 copyright date) were right that Digital fortress did not deserve to see the light of day: too light, too clichéd, just way too first draft. Dan; you really shouldn't have listened to your greedy agent (apologies for the redundancy). As I suspect was the plot, I bought this title on the strengths of his later published titles, especially Angels and Demons, please do not make the same mistake. If you simply must read everything a favored author publishes buy this one used or as a remainder as it is merely a very good example of the fact people can vastly improve writing over time (or more vigorous editing). For those who do bother I'd suggest treating it like those early studio tracks we get on a CD boxed set: simply appreciate how far the artist has come!
Rating:
Summary: A book to make dumb people feel smart
Review: This book makes me positive that I can work for the NSA. I am working on my resume right now. If people like Susan Fletcher can be the bright star of the NSA, then I know I can work next to her (and help her along when things don't connect inside her head, which was often). I like a protaganist that tries to figure things out. In this book, things just happen to Susan. She doesn't "do" anything. She doesn't use her noodle for anything other than for the male characters to say "oooh, she's pretty" (which happens frequently in this book). The climax was a disaster. I'm not the brightest street lamp on the avenue, but I can usually figure out what's going to happen in a book a little before it happens. But in this book, for the climax, I broke the "code" about 8 pages before the NSA experts broke the code. I also read this after reading The Da Vinci Code, which was much better. As much as reading The Da Vinci Code made me want to read another Dan Brown book, this one makes me NOT want to read another Dan Brown book. Even the cute little "code" on the last page of the book was embarrassingly easy to figure out. Brown should have made *something* in this book challenging for the reader, but instead it's maddening to scream at the characters in the book to make the most obvious connections. It might be true that "WE ARE WATCHING YOU", but it is also true that "I AM DONE WITH DAN BROWN'S BOOKS".
Rating:
Summary: A Thriller for Homer Simpson
Review: If you haven't guessed the twists, intrigue and punchline in the first 50 pages you need to get out more. Seriously, this is a book you throw in the corner after you finish and look for a way to make up for lost time. 2 stars for the effort to create a Clancy-ish thriller, lots of effort. Unfortunately, you could toss out half the book and loose little of any meaningful story line or entertainment. The subject matter, (NSA, Crypto, Mega Computers), is interesting enough and has a few geeky delights. However, it seems like a short story / eZine article blown into a book by adding pure filler = and as a result it's a yawner. Not worth the money.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book, overkill on the twists, though.
Review: Might I first say that this book was great. It was well written, too. Obviously, the reviewer l_o_b took things in this book WAY too seriously. Look, if anybody really tried to comprehend all the code and cipher mumbo-jumbo taking place in the NSA, they'd fry their brains out. Hence, our il-tempered, iritated and antagonized critic, no doubt, fried his brains out while STILL coming to an incorrect conclusion. Our reviewer also got this one very important fact wrong: Mr. Brown did NOT make public-key encryption and ogther public programs look like high-technology stuff. Might I remind l_o_b that the author had two ex-cyptographers supply info on the book? I'd like to see l_o_b get into the NSA, if you ask me. In my opinion, l-o-b makes my winner for jerk of the year. PS- Judging by the over criticaly enraged dialog from l_o_b'sr eview, I would concur that he DID NOT solve the code in the back of the book. For people trying to solve the code, try looking up on Google Mary Queen of Scots and how they solved her encoded letters... Now, getting back on track with the real review. He did write the book well, but by the end, the twists do prove a little exaggrated, though they are mostly amusing. I would surely suggest that you do not jump ahead, even if it is a page, because most likely it will always give something away. But, given how complicated the subject was, I think Dan Brown wrote it in an easy way to udnerstand. When finding that the book is somewhat confusing (which I didn't), please consider what that pile of sensless junk and data meant to the author before he put it into words. I will agree, Susan Fletcher going from "Don't mess with me" woman to "I'm so scared", was a bit dissapointing, but I could only find one occasion which this happened: when she thought her fiance (NOT boyfriend) wasn't ever coming back. Other then that, there is no denial of her persistency kepy up. She never gave up! But there is one last critical comment... Considering the entire first few chapters of the author explaining the mental strength and organizational skills of Strathmore, any man with Strathmore's personality wouldn't go anywhere near as to twhat great length's Strathmore did to win Susan's heart. Oh, yes, and Hale? I never, EVER took him seriously. Not even from the start. Four stars, remarkable.
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