Codebreaker

[HermioneWeasley]

This is a new book that's just come out about the history of codebreaking all the way up to really modern codebreaking, and it contains some challenges in the back. I'm still trying to solve the 4th one.

This book explained everything well, but I think it may have omitted some historical information that maybe should have been in here-it feels ind of incomplete at times. But the codes are certainly fun to solve, if frustrating at times.

If anyone else has read this book, how are the codes going for you?

 

[funes]

Hermione,
I'm not familiar with the book you mention, but if you liked it, you might also want to check out Simon Singh's The Code Book or David Kahn's The Code Breakers.
Or, if you are more in the mood for fiction, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon has a great deal to do with codes and code-breaking.

 

[text_maniac]

Who is the author?

 

[arnuld]

Which book you are talking about, there are many at amazon by the same title.

 

[Peder]

It is a pasttime of mine. I'd be interested also in looking at it.

 

[sparkchaser]

Also interested.

Simon Singh's book is a good one and is a great overview.

 

[pontalba]

Could this be it?

Codebreaker: The History of Codes and Ciphers by Stephen Pincock

It looks pretty interesting.

 

[Peder]

Hmmm, that's one I don't have.

 

[sparkchaser]

It is a pasttime of mine. I'd be interested also in looking at it.

Hey Peder (and other cryptography hobbyists), have you seen this?

Decoders take a crack at letter sent to Fermilab -- chicagotribune.com

First few paragraphs.

Decoders take a crack at letter sent to Fermilab

The enigma began last year when a plain envelope with no return address arrived at the world-famous physics laboratory outside Chicago, addressed simply to "Fermilab."

Inside was a single sheet marked by pen with a bizarre series of hash marks, numbers and alien-looking symbols.

No one at the lab could make sense of the letter. Was it a joke? A threat? A hint at some exotic new theory?

Whatever the meaning, something about the inscription's order and symmetry touched Judy Jackson, the first person to examine the letter. "It was beautiful, kind of like abstract art," said Jackson, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's director of public affairs.

In hopes of cracking the code, Jackson's colleagues posted the letter in May on their Internet blog.

Hundreds of people from around the world responded and several of them quickly deciphered part of the hidden message, discovering to their surprise that it named an 86-year-old retired physicist from Princeton University who designed some of Fermilab's first experimental tools.