The Code Book: How to Make It, Break It, Hack It, Crack It
Calling upon accounts of political intrigue and tales of life and death,  author Simon Singh tells history's most fascinating story of deception and  cunning: the science of cryptography--the encoding and decoding of private  information. Based onThe Code  Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography,  this version has been abridged and slightly simplified for a younger audience.  None of the appeal for curious problem-solving minds has been lost, though. From  Julius Caesar to the 10th-century Arabs; from Mary Queen of Scots to "Alice and  Bob"; from the Germans' Enigma machine to the Navajo code talkers in World War  II, Singh traces the use of code to protect--and betray--secrecy. Moving right  into the present, he describes how the Information Age has provided a whole new  set of challenges for cryptographers. 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? Complex but highly  accessible,The Code Bookwill make readers see the past--and the  future--in a whole new light. (Ages 14 and older)