''The Codebreakers – The Story of Secret Writing'' () is a book by David Kahn, published in 1967, comprehensively chronicling the history of cryptography from ancient

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

to the time of its writing. The

United States government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...

attempted to have the book altered before publication, and it succeeded in part.Pineau, Roger (1996). The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing by David Kahn, internal CIA book review by Roger Pineau, ca. 1967, released to public 1996. Retrieved fro

Overview

Bradford Hardie III, an American cryptographer during World War II, contributed insider information, German translations from original documents, and intimate real-time operational explanations to ''The Codebreakers''. ''The Codebreakers'' is widely regarded as the best account of the history of cryptography up to its publication. William P. Crowell, William Crowell, the former deputy director of the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

, was quoted in ''

Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and fo ...

'' magazine: "Before he (Kahn) came along, the best you could do was buy an explanatory book that usually was too technical and terribly dull."David Kahn: Historian of Secret Codes
by Arnold Abrams, in ''Newsday'' 2004-09-19 (no more available online (2013.02.27)) '' The Puzzle Palace'' (1982), written by James Bamford, gives a history of the writing and publication of ''The Codebreakers''. Kahn, then a journalist, was contracted to write a book on cryptology in 1961. He began writing it part-time, and then he quit his job to work on it full-time. The book was to include information on the

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collec ...

and, according to Bamford, the agency attempted to stop its publication. The NSA considered various options, including writing a negative review of Kahn's work to be published in the press to discredit him. A committee of the United States Intelligence Board concluded that the book was "a possibly valuable support to foreign COMSEC authorities" and recommended "further low-key actions as possible, but short of legal action, to discourage Mr. Kahn or his prospective publishers". Kahn's publisher, Macmillan and Sons, handed over the manuscript to the government for review without Kahn's permission on 4 March 1966. Kahn and Macmillan eventually agreed to remove some material from the manuscript, particularly concerning the relationship between the NSA and its counterpart in the United Kingdom, GCHQ. The book finishes with a chapter on SETI. Because of the year of its publication, the book did not cover most of the history concerning the breaking of the German Enigma machine, which became public knowledge during the 1970s. Hence, not much was said of

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical ...

. It also did not cover the advent of strong cryptography in the public domain, beginning with the invention of

public key cryptography Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic al ...

and the specification of the

Data Encryption Standard The Data Encryption Standard (DES ) is a symmetric-key algorithm for the encryption of digital data. Although its short key length of 56 bits makes it too insecure for modern applications, it has been highly influential in the advancement of cry ...

in the mid-1970s. The book was republished in 1996, and this new edition included an additional chapter briefly covering the events since the original publication.

References

Bibliography

* Secret War of Words; ''The Codebreakers''. The Story of Secret Writing. By David Kahn. New York Times Book Review, Jan 7, 1968. pg. BR10 {{DEFAULTSORT:Codebreakers, The 1967 non-fiction books Cryptography books History of cryptography Books about the National Security Agency vi:The Codebreakers

Overview

See also

References

Bibliography