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Since the birth of
writing, there has also been the need for secrecy. The story
of codes is the story of the brilliant men and women who used
mathematics, linguistics, machines, computers, gut instinct,
logic and detective work to encrypt and break these secret
messages. And, of course, when codes are broken the impact on
history can be dramatic.
In each
episode of The Science of Secrecy, I tell a
fascinating story from the history of codes: how Mary Queen of
Scots was trapped by her own cipher; how the cracking of the
'unbreakable' Vigenère code remained a Victorian secret,
hushed up by the British government; how the well-timed
cracking of a single encoded telegram altered the course
of World War One, and how the mysteries of the Rosetta
Stone were revealed, resulting in the decipherment of Egyptian
hieroglyphs.
The
Science of Secrecy also investigates present day concerns
about privacy on the Internet and the invention of so-called
public-key cryptography.
NB: The
Science of Secrecy is my second book on cryptography. My
first, called The Code Book,
covers similar material to the Science of Secrecy. It is
already available in paperback so it is somewhat cheaper. The
advantages of The Science of Secrecy are that it is in
hardback, better illustrated, and follows the structure of the
TV series. If you have read The Code Book then you probably
would not want to read The Science of Secrecy, but you might want to buy it as a present for a friend.
Signed
copies of The Code Book can be bought
via this site. You can buy the Science of Secrecy from Amazon.co.uk |
