THE CIPHER OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

The birth of cryptography, the substitution cipher and the invention of codebreaking by frequency analysis

THE ANONYMOUS CODEBREAKER

The Vigenere cipher, why cryptographers seldom get credit for their breakthroughs and a tale of buried treasure

THE MECHANIZATION OF SECRECY

The Zimmermann telegram, the Enigma machine and how cryptography changed the courses of World Wars I and II

THE LANGUAGE BARRIER

The impenetrability of unknown languages, the Navajo code talkers of World War II and the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs

ALICE AND BOB Go PUBLIC

Modern cryptography, the solution to the so-called key-distribution problem and the secret history of nonsecret encryption

PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY

The politics of privacy, the future of cryptography and the quest for an uncrackable code.