Rating: 
Summary: Lack of research ruined an intriguing plot
Review: Having worked in software, physical security, and with cryptography, I was intrigued by the topic. Unfortunately, Dan Brown failed to do much research before writing this book. It reminds me of an essay that I wrote at the last minute in English 101. The grammer was correct, but none of the facts were accurate.Virtaully all of the elements in the book were wrong; from the types of physical security that would be used by the NSA, to the computer security methods, to the isotopes and seperation methods used in the Hirosima and Nagasaki bombs. It was like watching "The Land Of The Giants" ... improbable and incredible. Don't waste your money on the book.
Rating:
Summary: HIST KOBO KUSSC
Review: If you deciphered the title of this post, you've just used more brain power than required by this "novel"
After reading DVC and visiting Dan's site, I was hoping for another fun read sprinkled with interesting facts and revelations. What a great topic - the ambiguous morality of an all seeing protector, high tech intrigue, inner secrets of the NSA, etc. - too bad it was so uninteresting, not to mention sophomoric. He barely touches on the complex issues involved in the safety vs security debate. The characters are two dimentional and the dialogue is about as sophisticated as that written by a high school freshman. I finished the damn thing, always hoping the cool part was around the corner. Nada. Who didn't figure out that the difference between uranium 238 and uranium 235 is 8 about four pages before the geniuses of the NSA?
Rating:
Summary: A lack of research and an insult to intelligence
Review: The book is dull, full of false cliches and loaded with wrong information. If the people at the NSA are that intelligent, we are heading for a disaster. The characters are coming from a third rate story and behaves like kids in kindergarden. As you read along, you keep asking yourself : "Can they be that stupid?" IF Susan Fletcher has IQ of 170 then we are all geniuses and the IQ system is flawed.
Mr Brown should check his sources and respect his readers by doing some research. As you read the book, you would think that Spain is a third world country with very poor medical system and where everything is dirty. It is rather offending and makes you want to scream at this display of cultural ignorance and blind stupidity.
But it is not the first book where one notices a lack of accuracy and strong bias towards cliches and preconveived ideas
Don't waste your time and money. An tell your friends, we are the victims of publicity and they think we are fools.
Rating:
Summary: A waste of time and your money
Review: This book is really an insult to those who has a brain. What can I say? I definitely would not buy into the author's the other hype: the "D.V. Code". The plot in this story is so dull and plain, you almost predict it from the beginning: when Susan Fletcher (the main character) over and over agin mentioned at the beginning that there are no "unbreakable code", you almost immediately suspect whatever is running in that TRANSLTR machine is just a decoy for "unbreakable code", and the true purpose was to implant virus. GUESS WHAT? THAT WAS THE WHOLE PLOT of the book! How disappointed it is! Also, the love story and David Becker's journey in Spain to successfully retrieve the ring was so irrelevant to the plot and so dull, you have to be a real idiot to believe it is remotely possible. Needless to say, as other reviewers pointed out, the mistakes author made regarding computer technology are too many. Save your time and money!
Rating:
Summary: Outdated, dumb and wrong on the facts
Review: As a fan of DVC and Dan Brown's other works, I was hopeful that this would be a hidden gem. Boy was I disappointed. Had I read this five years ago, I might have been more impressed -- I wouldn't have known the depth of plot devices' ignorance and silliness. I cannot recommend this read. Stick with Angels & Devils and DVC. Deception Point isn't bad. Better than this one.
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.
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