Cryptonomicon

Shinji

Probably the single best historical/fiction book I've ever read - and he makes some very interesting and valid points about internet policing, security and privacy too. Thought provoking, intelligent, informative and full of Stephensons usual wit and quirky descriptions. Bit of a hefty tome mind

DeVore

Regi put me onto this book recently and its a cracker (no pun intended!).

Its essentially a work of fiction but its very rooted in and around the happenings in Bletchley Park during the second world war (where they broke the enigma code).

Mix this with a modern day thread and some great story telling and you have a classic book. Neal Stephenson is the author and if you are at all interested in crpytography and code breaking etc and want to read an entertaining book at the same time, I highly recommend it!

DeV.

Draco

Execellent read. I'm obessed with building a data haven since I read it. Alegedly there is some Japanese gold buried some where in that region - I seen something about it recently and for the life of me I can't remember where.

Trojan

Almost identical to Robert Harris's "Enigma" (set around 1943 during the battle of the Atlantic).

Different styles though, I think I'd prefer Stephenson.

I have "The Codebreakers" by David Kahn here - only started it, it's a non-fictional book mainly about 20th century cryptography. Good so far!

Al.

yellum

Its a good book alright. Some very funny bits in it too. Bobby Shaftoe rocks. Hmm, The Most Cigarettes. Must go back and try and read Gravitys Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon again. Couldn't manage it before but now I have a hankering for WWII stories.

--Kaiser--

Where they broke the enigma code?

i hope you realise the british actually captured an enigma decoder machine of a german sub.without that they would never haved cracked it.

not very impressive at all.

Draco

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by --Kaiser--:
i hope you realise the british actually captured an enigma decoder machine of a german sub.without that they would never haved cracked it.</font>

Er, no. They had plenty of Engima machines - they had even reverse engineered one before they got their hands on a real one. The important thing they got from the sub was the book with all the current codes.

yossarin

Alan Turing (our god and master ) proved that enigma was crackable beoore he did it.

He also used cribs (known plaintext attacking) to figure out a wheels settings for that day...
...allright, i've got the code book open on my lap. but still.

Talliesin

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">i hope you realise the british actually captured an enigma decoder machine of a german sub.without that they would never haved cracked it.

not very impressive at all.
</font>

Okay then, away you go and crack RSA then, since you are in a better position wrt. having access to the technology than the British were with enigma it should be easy for you to do then.

One of the points made in Cryptonomicon (and elsewhere of course) about the effect of the cracking of Enigma on crytography was that it was then fully appreciated that to be considered secure you have to be uncrackable (or not feasibly crackable) even when your enemies have access to the algorithm and technology you are using.

Sadly Enigma had been cracked before Bletchly by a Polish man whose work was largely ingored. Alan Turing is still the greates gay war-hero since Alexander the Great

Oi Devore! Does this mean your finished reading it and I can have my book back?

--Kaiser--

Its not quite the same thing Talliesin, after you reverse engineer the mechanical decoder device (a few good engineers), theres not much left to do

DeVore

(wrt = With respect to)

Turing had already cracked the code before capturing a working model. In fact its important to note that the Germans used a wheel based system to physically represent their algorithm, while Turing used a completely different physical representation of the same algorithm. This must have strengthened his thoughts of information/algorithms being disconnected from their physical representations. he postulated the same thing in some of his work on Universal Turing Machines.

DeV.


(ps: they discovered the 4 wheel version on a sub which greatly sped up cracking the new and improved "Enigma" (called something else which I've forgotten). without that version it would have been much harder to bruteforce the new crypto. That might be what you were thinking of...)

Talliesin

No, the Enigma system was key-based, and the key would change every day, so every day they would have to crack it again.
Given that the algorithm was good (one of the reasons that Bruce Schneier's Solitaire crypto-system was used in the book is that it is technically comparable to Enigma - it's rotor based - but strong enough to be used for short messages today) this was no easy task, and with the best computing equipment ever created it would still often take all day to crack it.

Reverse-engineering the machine just gives you the algorithm, putting you in the same position that you are in wrt. cracking RSA.

--Kaiser--

'wrt'?

LoLth

I always thought the cryptonomicon was a "serious" Im-reading-a-computer-theory-book-that-you'll-never-understand type of booky. Actually sounds interesting.

Draco! You still got a copy of it? Can I borrow it?

Draco

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by LoLth:
Draco! You still got a copy of it? Can I borrow it?</font>

Baz has it at the moment. I'll see if he's finished with it.

Talliesin

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">I always thought the cryptonomicon was a "serious" Im-reading-a-computer-theory-book-that-you'll-never-understand type of booky</font>

While it is a novel it does explain a few principals of math and cryptography. It says something about the quality of the writing that when it explained something I didn't know before it was easy-to-follow, but it wasn't boring when it explained stuff I already knew pretty well.
Also the explanations don't break the flow of the story.

DeVore

Yes, its actually three stories rolled into one. The first is centred around Bletchley Park and the Enigma code. The second is based around a special group of soldiers fighting in WW2. The last is actually based in present day about a company wanting to set up a data haven in the South Pacific.

Large chunks of the book have nothing directly to do with Cryptography but its a common (and strong) theme running through all the stories.
Its a must read book.

Dev.

Da Bounca

i was told the book cycles between 3 different time preiods. that right?

SweetBirdOfTruth

3 seperate stories, two ww2-based, one based in modern times.

an excellent rd and if you don't enjoy it use it as a door stop

Enygma

Reading this again for the fifth time. Possibly the best book I've ever read. Can't wait for Quicksilver (you can pre-book it on Amazon even tho it's prolly not even finished yet)
Funny how you pick up small details that you miss the first time round.

Wasn't it the Poles that cracked the enigma first? Rejewski I think? Turing found a quicker way to do it and indusrialised the process.