The Code Book
by Simon Singh · Simon Singh
Narrative history of secret writing from the Caesar cipher through Mary Queen of Scots, Enigma, and public-key cryptography. Readers finish understanding how each cipher worked, why it fell, and how codebreaking shaped historical events.
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More resources on Cryptography
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Cryptography is an indispensable tool for protecting information in computer systems. In this course you will learn the inner workings of cryptographic systems and how to correctly use them in real-world applications. The course begins with a detailed discussion of how two parties who have a shared secret key can communicate securely when a powerful adversary eavesdrops and tampers with traffic. We will examine many deployed protocols and analyze mistakes in existing systems. The second half of the course discusses public-key techniques that let two parties generate a shared secret key. Throughout the course participants will be exposed to many exciting open problems in the field and work on fun (optional) programming projects. In a second course (Crypto II) we will cover more advanced cryptographic tasks such as zero-knowledge, privacy mechanisms, and other forms of encryption.
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