Rating: 
Summary: Gripping, realistic,intriguing thriller
Review: I saw Dan Brown at Exeter, and got to meet him after the speech. His book was inspired by a student arrested at Exeter after sending E-Mail to his friend about how much he hated Clinton. The government intercepted the E-Mail, and inspired the author to come up with the idea for a story about the NSA. Good Read!
Rating:
Summary: Very good, gripping, hard to put down
Review: This book was amazing, and so gripping on-the-edge-of-your-seat that it was hard to stop reading it. Excellent read
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully wrighten thriller.
Review: I thought that it was a compelling mistery of sorts that I could not put down.
Rating: 
Summary: A good techno-thriller, but some technical flaws
Review: As an avid fan of Cryptography, I read this book cover to cover on a boring day. The plot isn't too bad, however, the author confuses programs for algorithms as well as confusing public key algorithms with symmetric key algorithms. I can forgive these, but what gets to me is a major point in the book. It appeared that TRANSLTR "broke codes" by brute force and finding patterns in the ciphertext. This would appear that it was designed for finding plain*text* and not executables. Even if the plaintext was an executable, who would be stupid enough run executable code from anyone? Also, it appeared to me that the decrypt included source code (which they analyzed at the end) which would make the whole thing make less sense because it'd have to be compiled. One would think they'd analyze the source code thoroughly before running anything on TRANSLTR. My last concern was over the "Gauntlent". "Gauntlent" would need the plaintext of the binary (or source code) to analyze before it could know anything about the payload (because any encryption algorithm worth anything will produce a random output). If one needs the plaintext that only TRANSLTR can find, how could it prevent anything it didn't know the contents of!? Despite the technical flaws, it was a good book. I liked the ending too.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent techno-thriller, thoroughly satisfying
Review: For someone was loves techno-thrillers, this one will not disappoint. A true page turner with an interwoven story line that keeps your attention all the way to the end. The only disappointment was the "ultimate" riddle at the end. Brown tied together a lot of things together with the riddle, but it was too obvious and was drawn out entirely too long. The chief code-breaker's IQ started at out 170 and went down as the story progressed.The book was able to weave a story around cryptography however, someone who has studied the subject will be able to point out obvious stretches.
Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: The Book Digital fortress has to be the best book that I have ever read. This was the first book that I literaly didn't put down and read it in one day non-stop. I dont understand how it could get anything below five stars. The plot has non-stop action that keeps you on the edge of your seat for the full three hundred pages. The realism in which it is written is incredible. I kept on forgetting that this was a fiction book and not a true story about the NSA. I wold strongly reccomend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: This book was glued to my hands!
Review: The depth and detail that go into this story are so real that it is scary. To think that what goes on in this book may actually be happening right now! I found myself literally unable to put this book down. The author, Dan Brown, is one of the best, if not the best, author that I have ever read. I can't wait for his next book to come out.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting book by a still raw-writing author
Review: During the reading of this book, I just couldn't stop wondering if these jerks were actually the real people who actually run the NSA. If the answer was yes, then our USofA would definitely in big trouble. The author had inevitablely gave me an impression that the whole NSA scenes inside out were just so obviously fake, since he could only imagine the tight security for entry, but once got in, he just could not provide us with more realistic pictures, so he just failed to visualize correctly and to deliver. So, what we got here from him were couple of very unprofessional, sexual harassing jerk like Hale, an egghead nerd, a very unconvincing IQ170 woman, her multi-lingualled sweetheart, an old, stress sticken No.2 guy, a steel-rimmed killer, plus several security guards outside the NSA building. Putting a Japanese American as some kind traitor, doing some personal vandetta to NSA and its personnel is still a legacy of the pathetic American syndrome orginated and still die-hard from WWII--the Asian Americans simply would not be accepted completely as other racial Americans, so, guilty until proven innocent; put them in concentration camp before they become the snitches, informers, or traitors--the (Japanese)American, even he had passed the security check to be qualified as an NSA employee, but he's doomed to be unstable, untrustworthy and would inevitablely became a traitor and sold his 'Digital Fortress' to his Japanese folks in Japan. This is a disgusting logic that made me appreciate more to the "Mercury Rising" movie. At least there were only real Americans being betrayed and killed, and all the Japanese people in that movie were just purely innocent, big dollar-spending tourists.
Rating: 
Summary: A fun one...
Review: I recently heard the author speak at a technology conference and was impressed. I bought Digital Fortress, not sure what to expect. It was a pleasant surprise. Fast, intelligent, and full of surprises. I'm giving it a four instead of a five only because I can't break the darn code at the end!
Rating: 
Summary: Fast paced thriller poops out..........
Review: The first 75% of this book is fast-paced with lots of action and numerous plot twists. Then, it sort of dies. The lame "riddle" that must be solved by the government computer nerds at the end of the story regarding the hiroshima and nagasaki bombs is just plain dumb and the characters, who were somewhat intelligent up until that point, take stupid pills. Also, as was mentioned by some of the other reviewers, the revisionist history/political correctness in condemning America's "despicable" act using the bombs on Japan gets tiresome. The bombs ended the war; a war that was killing 35,000 US servicemen each week. Too bad the author flubbed at the end. Up until that point, it was a fun read.
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