[bksvol-discuss] submitted
- From: "Sarah Van Oosterwijck" <curiousentity@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 22:33:38 -0600
Hello,
There is a fascinating but challenging book now awaiting a validator. It is
called The code Book How to make it, break it, hack it, crack it by Simon
Singh.
Here is the long synopsis
It's known as the science of secrecy.
Cryptography: the encoding and de coding of private information. And it is
history's most fascinating story of intrigue and cunning.
The battle between codemakers and codebreakers has been going on for
centuries: from Julius Caesar and his Caesar cipher to the codebreaking
achievements of the tenth-century Arabs; from the code used by Mary Queen of
Scots in an attempt to dethrone Elizabeth I to Sir Francis Walsingham's
decipherment of that code, which led to Mary's execution for treason; from
the Germans' use of the Enigma machine for automatic encryption in the
Second World War to Alan Turing's efforts to infiltrate Enigma, which
contributed to the Allied victory.
And the battle rages on. How private are your e-mail communications? How
secure is sending your credit card information over the Internet? And how
much secrecy will the government tolerate?
Simon Singh follows the evolution of secret writing with a clarity that lets
the reader enjoy the captivating story while easily absorbing the details of
cryptography. Woven throughout are clear and concise illustrations of the
processes of enciphering and deciphering. Accessible, compelling and timely,
this international bestseller, now adapted for young people, is sure to make
readers see the past- and the future-in a whole new way.
And here are my extensive comments to the validator
Book is 263 pages long including the index. I have not edited the index,
but have read and tried to edit the rest of the book. I can not guarantee
the validity of most of the cipher alphabets, but many tables have been
fixed, and the mathematical formulas have been corrected with the ^ symbol
indicating "to the power of".
THE CODEBREAKER'S CHALLENGE at the end of the book is corrected. As the
Validator you may want to add some of my comments or comments of your own to
the long synopsis field before final upload. I don't want to do it now
because I won't know what else will be checked.
I would say that the text of the book is in excellent shape, but with all
the other stuff I can't validate well, I won't say that the entire book is
any higher than good quality. Of course the automated check will be
completely wrong, since this book is actually supposed to contain a large
amount of meaningless garble.
I forgot to mention that I replaced all tabs with 5 spaces for lack of a
better idea.
I can indeed tell if the normal alphabet is written correctly just by
hearing it pronounced now. I enjoyed reading it even though I sometimes got
a headache from trying to figure out if it was okay. Anyone who takes this
book on is to be congratulated and much appreciated.
Sarah Van Oosterwijck
http://home.earthlink.net/~netentity/
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