Not a book, but if you're interested in codes and codebreaking, it's worth a trip to the "National Cryptologic Museum", located right outside the NSA headquarters at Ft. Meade, Maryland (between Baltimore and DC). It's a relatively small place that's open daily and seems to be a labor of love by retired NSA codebreakers.
The museum has a four-rotor Enigma machine, which is about the size of a typewriter. It is packed into a wooden case and deployable into the field.
The museum also has a "Bombe", the Enigma codebreaking machine devised originally by Polish mathematicians, and improved by Alan Turing and others, and fabricated in quantity by the British and the Americans during the war. This an electromechanical device the size of several refrigerators.
So nice to see them both together. Of course, I have today's simple and compact encryption technology in my phone, and right across the parking lot from the museum, there is an acreage of computers (Ft. Meade) which is probably able to decrypt what I send, if desired. Same as it ever was.
Not really; I've never done any cryptography so I wouldn't know if I liked it. I thought I'd see if I liked it by learning about it for a WW2 class. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
The museum has a four-rotor Enigma machine, which is about the size of a typewriter. It is packed into a wooden case and deployable into the field.
The museum also has a "Bombe", the Enigma codebreaking machine devised originally by Polish mathematicians, and improved by Alan Turing and others, and fabricated in quantity by the British and the Americans during the war. This an electromechanical device the size of several refrigerators.
So nice to see them both together. Of course, I have today's simple and compact encryption technology in my phone, and right across the parking lot from the museum, there is an acreage of computers (Ft. Meade) which is probably able to decrypt what I send, if desired. Same as it ever was.