Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely great!
Review: I don't really have anything bad to say about this book. Well, it could've been a bit longer... When I got my copy and opened the first page I just couldn't stop reading. The book serves great as an easy readable and entertaining primer to the history of codes and code breaking.Kahn's Codebreakers is said to also be worth reading on the subject, but it seems to lack the newest twists of codebreaking, namely the last 30 years or so. Singh's book covers those nicely.
Rating:
Summary: a good book for beginners
Review: This is a really good book for beginners in criptography. It has the story of criptography (the explanations of ciphers and how to break them) since the first ciphers.
Rating: 
Summary: E-Review: COM680
Review: "The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography" by Simon Singh is a wonderful book about the history of code-making and code-breaking. What is most impressive about Singh is he is able to take the most complicated mathematical information (in my opinion) and explain it in layman's terms. Another more suitable name for "The Code Book could be Code-Making and Code-Breaking for Dummies: A Historical Perspective". Singh covers the history of encryption, tracing its evolution throughout time and outlining the impact cryptography and cryptanalysis has had on the world. World War II, the Enigma machine and how the fate of the world rested upon whether or not secret knowledge would fall into enemy hands, is discussed in great detail. From Singh's perspective, it would seem that the outcome of all military battles could be pre-determined by who had employed better cryptanalysis, as the most powerful weapon, is secrecy. Personally, what interested me most about "The Code Book" is its discussion about the Navajo Code Talkers, hieroglyphics, Linear B, and quantum cryptography. I also thoroughly enjoyed the author's humor and wit, ability to break things down so that a non-technological mind could grasp some of the most complicated of codes and his affinity for making the personalities who discovered the codes as well as the personalities who broke the codes, come to life. I would highly recommend "The Code Book" to anyone who is interested in cryptography, cryptanalysis, security, telecommunications, math, science, history or simply a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: A technical book wrapped in stories
Review: If you want to understand how cryptography works, why it was developed and how it is broken this is one of the best books you can find on that subject. It includes cipher texts at the end to see how much you've learned...a fun way to learn about actually cracking ciphers. Written from a mathematical point of view, with plenty of stories and lore mixed in this book is fun for people with both no calculus experience and people with advanced degrees in applied math. I truly enjoyed this book and the analytical thinking it brought me.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: A very well written book on a fascinating subject. I've read a lot of books on cryptography, particularly the historical aspects of the subject. This is by far the best one. All the others either skim over the details of how each cypher works, or ignore it all together. Not Singh! Wonderful details very well explained. Whether you have a good math background or not, you'll find it interesting.
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Summary: Excellent History of Cryptography, And a Great Read!
Review: This is one of the greatest histories of cryptography that I have ever read. It discusses many of fundamentals and also simple substitution ciphers and how they are broken. It keeps you in pace with the story so much so that when I learned how the Viegnere cipher was broken I originally thought it to be impossible. It is a fun read and it is clear to understand unlike some other cryptographic books and explains concepts very well. I especially enjoyed testing out trying out the Diffie Hellman key exchange and learning about the possible futures of Cryptography in Quantum Computers and Quantum Cryptography. A must read for anyone interested in learning the basics of cryptography. Definately a great place to start!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, well-written, entertaining
Review: I also read Fermat's Enigma. I would read anything by Singh.
Rating:
Summary: I love it
Review: At the time of this review there have already been other 159, and all with 5 or 4 stars, so what else to say ?
But I couldn't stop myself from writing some more compliments.
While not being stuffed with math formulas, it's able to deliver deep understanding on the basis of chyper and coding. And there is even more, because the main focus isn't on the techniques, but on the history of coding, and I can assure you there is plenty of it. After all keeping secrets has always played an important role in our life, beeing them innocent paper messages on schooldesks or war-resolving "Enigma-encrypted" messages.
So my advice is : if you were thinking about reading it, definitely do. And also if you weren't.......
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece
Review: I'm sure there are countless technical books that deal with cryptography in a lot more detail. But as an introduction to the concepts and as a reading experience, The Code Book is a paragon of popular science writing. Singh is able to communicate all the basic ideas behind cryptography as well as the historical events that both led to and were the result of the cryptographic "arms race." What's more, Singh includes a cipher challenge at the end of the book in order to have readers try their own hands at codebreaking. My only wish is that Singh had given more explanation of the homophonic substitution cipher, but that's a minor quibble. I recommend this book without reservation to anyone who will listen.
Rating:
Summary: Page-turner
Review: This is one of the best examples of popular applied science I have ever read. An excellent, brilliantly written, fast-paced page-turner. From the basics of frequency analysis it leads the reader to the complexities of quantum cryptography - never letting us down, always trying to explain the most difficult scientific and technical concepts in the most accessible way. The detours to natural languages (alive, as in the case with the Navajo code talkers, or dead, as with Middle Egyptian and Linear B) provide excellent background for the main theme of the book. With my background in history and linguistics, I found the book very sound from the academic standpoint - given my limited knowledge, of course. However, the author has an uneasy relationship with all things Russian - whenever he touches the subject, it's a blunder. The Russian alphabet has 32 or 33 letters (depending on whether you count an optional one), but definitely not 36; Gorbachov came to power in 1985, not '89; if Yeltsin would have shelled the Latvian parliament in 1993, that would have been a full-blown international conflict; instead, he shelled his very own Russian parliament (whether with justification or not, I am not going to discuss here). Otherwise - a tour de force.
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