Codes
and Ciphers
CSC 233
Historical and Popular Books
- The Codebreakers, David Kahn, Sribner, 1996.
(Comprehensive history of cryptology.)
- Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945, Leo Marks, Free
Press, 2000. (Cliffhanger account of Marks code-making work for British spies in
Europe; compelling reading. Check out interview
with Marks)
- The American Black Chamber, Yardley, Aegean Park Press.
(Yardley was in charge of the American Black chamber which existed from 1917 to
1929. There also is a recent biography of Yardley by David Kahn entitled The
Reader of Gentlemen's Mail).
- The Code Book, Simon Singh, Anchor, 2000. (Popular historical
account of cryptology, with a fair amount of technical detail.)
- The Cuckoo's Egg, Cliff Stoll, Pocket Books, 1990. (Real life account of
Stoll tracking down a hacker. Better than James Bond.)
-
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson, Harper, 2000.
(Occasionally long-winded novel, containing accurate technical details.)
- The Man Who Broke Purple, Ronald Clark, Little Brown, 1977. (Biography of
William Friedman, the father of modern American cryptography, and the story of
how he broke Purple.)
- The Puzzle Palace, James Bamford, Viking, 1983. (The
early history of the National Security Agency (NSA)).
-
The Shadow Factory,
James Bamford, Random House, 2009. (Bamford continues his story of the NSA
post 9/11).
-
The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception, H Keith Melton,
Robert Wallace (eds), William Morrow, 2009. (A training manual for spies
written by famous magician John Mulholland. The training manual itself is
less interesting than the lengthy introductory essay by the editors.)
-
Masked Dispatches: Cryptograms and Cryptology in American History 1775-1900,
Ralph Weber. (Account of early American cryptography prepared by the NSA and
based on Ralph Weber's own groundbreaking book on American codes and
ciphers.)
Technical Books
- Military Cryptanalytics, Part I and II, Friedman, Callimahos, Aegean Park
Press. (Military training manual for codebreakers. Excellently presented
material.)
- Cryptanalysis, Helen Fouche Gaines
-
Decrypted Secrets, Bauer, Springer, 2002 (3rd edition).
(Extremely comprehensive treatment of classical cryptology up to the end of
WWII)
- Handbook of Applied Cryptography, Menezes, van
Oorschot, Vanstone, CRC 1997. (Comprehensive treatment of modern cryptography).
- Applied Cryptography, Schneier, Wiley, 1996. (Very
applied, includes code.)
- Machine Cryptography and Modern
Cryptanalysis, Cipher A. Deavours, Louis Kruh.
-
Basic cryptanalysis
(field manual, released by the army; many similar books are available at
Aegan Park Press).
Security
Simulators and other Tools
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Marcus Schaefer
Last updated: December 13th, 2010.