داستان رمزگشایی: از رمزهای باستانی تا رمزنگاری کوانتومی

'No wonder that Churchill described this effort as "Britain's secret weapon," a weapon far more effective than the buzz bombs and the rockets that Wernher von Braun designed for a German victory, a weapon absolutely decisive, in the judgement of many, in winning the war for the Allies.' Peter Hilton, mathematician and codebreaker, 1923-2010, about the team at Bletchley Park The Story of Codebreaking begins with the hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt and weaves its way stealthily through history to the present day, where computer code is fundamental to all of our online activities. It is a tale of ordinary people rising to the challenge of extraordinary circumstances and shows how, through a combination of intelligence, grit, hard work and (occasionally) sheer good fortune, codebreakers have often saved lives and sometimes even changed the course of history. Topics include: • ancient ciphers and the art of encoding • early spies, subterfuge and skytales • the making and breaking of Enigma • Japanese naval codes in World War II • Cold War cryptography • the digital revolution "This is a history of cryptology from its early days in Ancient Egypt, Sparta and Rome to the present day when it has ceased to be a government monopoly and now affects all our lives whenever we use our cell phones or connect to the internet. Subjects covered here include Mary Queen of Scots' cryptic messages when she was plotting against her cousin Elizabeth I; the codes used by George Washington and the Popes for military and political purposes; code-breaking during World Wars I and II including the Enigma Machine and the interception of Japanese messages before Pearl Harbor. Those who invent codes and those who break them are remarkable, indefatigable characters. This is their story."--bookmasters.com Julius Caesar is recorded as having routinely used ciphers, and evidence of secret writing and coded messages dates back further to the ancient civilizations of China, India and Greece. This illustrated history explains the development of setting and cracking codes from simple substitution ciphers in use in medieval Europe to the decoding of the incendiary Zimmerman telegram in 1917, Alan Turing's breakthrough in mechanized analysis at Bletchley Park and modern computer-generated systems of encryption and decryption.