Rating: 
Summary: Top book
Review: A great way to get started in classical cryptology. If you want to go further and learn something about cryptology today, I'd suggest Applied Cryptology by Bruce Schneier, rather than the Konheim book, which is really heavy duty mathematics.
Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Start
Review: A great way to get started in classical cryptology. If you want to go further and learn something about cryptology today, I'd suggest Applied Cryptology by Bruce Schneier, rather than the Konheim book, which is really heavy duty mathematics.
Rating:
Summary: Best Book for Manual Ciphers
Review: As a former codebreaker with the ASA/NSA during the VN war, I often found it helpful to have a copy of Helen's book handy, and spent many enjoyable hours solving the sample ciphers provided. This valuable book not only describes many historically significant encipherment methods, but also goes into detail about how to break them. Afficianados of manual ciphers might also wish to contact others with similar interests and can do so through the American Cryptogram Association at www.cryptogram.org.
Rating:
Summary: Best Book for Manual Ciphers
Review: As a former codebreaker with the ASA/NSA during the VN war, I often found it helpful to have a copy of Helen's book handy, and spent many enjoyable hours solving the sample ciphers provided. This valuable book not only describes many historically significant encipherment methods, but also goes into detail about how to break them. Afficianados of manual ciphers might also wish to contact others with similar interests and can do so through the American Cryptogram Association at www.cryptogram.org.
Rating:
Summary: A great introduction to classical cryptography
Review: I bought this book after becoming interested in cryptanalysis from reading The Code Book By Simon Singh. Wow! This book is chock full of information considering its age. Not only does it give great analyses of classical ciphers, it has loads of useful information about various languages in the appendix. This data is indispensable when trying to crack a cipher. Loads of solved exercises complete a very enjoyable book that will suck many hours of your time if you're interested in cryptography at all.
Rating:
Summary: Best source for pre-computer decryption techniques.
Review: I bought this book over 40 years ago... It is, by far, the best book for pen-and-pencil cryptogram solving that I have found. It gives sufficient information to allow attacking any pen-and-pencil cryptogram. If it is followed by Bauer's "Decrypted Secrets," one would have a very thorough introduction to methods of solutions (Bauer is quite mathematical, but also recommended to the mathematically inclined). An excellent introduction with a great deal of useful information that is probably the best available source for pre-computer techniques.
Rating:
Summary: Best source for pre-computer decryption techniques.
Review: I bought this book over 40 years ago... It is, by far, the best book for pen-and-pencil cryptogram solving that I have found. It gives sufficient information to allow attacking any pen-and-pencil cryptogram. If it is followed by Bauer's "Decrypted Secrets," one would have a very thorough introduction to methods of solutions (Bauer is quite mathematical, but also recommended to the mathematically inclined). An excellent introduction with a great deal of useful information that is probably the best available source for pre-computer techniques.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent practical guide to cryptogram solving
Review: I don't remember where I got this from, but it it really excellent. It covers various common classical cryptographic techniques such as transposition, simple substitution, polyalphabetical substitution techniques (Vigenere, etc.), and many other kinds of ciphers, together with practical methods on cracking and solving them.The only drawback is that this book tends to concentrate on solving specific ciphers, and only in the last chapter makes a bit of mention of what to do when confronted with a cipher message that you know nothing about. But despite that, it's definitely worth getting. And it's [inexpensive]!
Rating:
Summary: Rich and Famous in Hollywood
Review: I have been a fan of TV game shows for my whole life. Several years ago, while I was on vacation in the Los Angeles area, I made an appointment to try out to be a contestant on the Wheel of Fortune TV show. I detailed the rules of the game to friends gathered around a pool in Altadena. Our host, a professor who never watched TV, said that puzzle solving on the Wheel was an example of cryptanalysis. He taught a course on the subject at Caltech. He retreated to the house and emerged with a copy of the Gaines book for me to read. I went on to win over $50,000 on the show. This book may be dated now that we rely on computing systems to encrypt and decrypt our information. However, I found the detailed discussions of historical encryption techniques interesting. The book was of use to me as reference of important statistical information on the English language: frequency of single letters, diagrams and trigrams (two- and three-letter combinations), initial and final letter frequencies, ordered list of the most commonly used English words. You may not become rich and famous in Hollywood as I did, but you should find this to be a worthwhile book.
Rating:
Summary: fantastic instructional manual for classical ciphers
Review: Simply the best manual for learning basic cryptanalysis of classical ciphers. Very easy on required math knowledge (unlike many of more recent books!) If you really want to learn a working knowledge of ciphers and cryptanalysis this is the book!
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