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A comment on Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?.

Re:Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field ... by ghostpepper on Sunday March 27, 2022 @03:52PM (#30823455)
I am not a cryptographer but I do work in security and The Code Book by Simon Singh is an excellent history of the history of cryptography/cryptanalysis presented as periods through history where the pendulum swung between giving the edge to the code makers or breakers. The code makers have been ahead since about the 1970s.
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Re:Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field ... by misterpurple45 on Sunday March 27, 2022 @04:07PM (#30823596)
> The code makers have been ahead since about the 1970s.

Or so the code breakers would have us believe…

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Re:Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field ... by rizzaxc on Monday March 28, 2022 @03:36AM (#30828088)
I was a middle schooler when I read it. Definitely written for the general public and written well. I remember being stoked when I encountered those concepts again in college and ended up with an extra major in network/ security
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Re:Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field ... by mimimi31 on Sunday March 27, 2022 @05:21PM (#30824276)
I picked that one up because of a similar recommendation, but didn't finish it. I think I was expecting an extensive collection of different ciphers throughout history with some short historical anectodes to go along with them. But it's really more about a few selected historical applications of encryption with a heavy focus on their historical context.
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Re:Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field ... by ghostpepper on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @05:06PM (#30848370)
Yeah it's definitely 'History with some algorithms' and not 'Algorithms with some history' but I think the latter book is probably easier to find, no?
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Re:Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field ... by seanw444 on Sunday March 27, 2022 @04:37PM (#30823857)
Been on a cryptography kick lately, so I went to the city library a couple days ago to find what they had, and I came out with this book.

So far, I've gotta give the +1 on this one.

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