The Woman Who Smashed Codes

A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies

paperback, 464 pages

Published Aug. 28, 2018 by Dey Street Books.

ISBN:
978-0-06-243051-9
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4 stars (7 reviews)

The true story of the greatest codebreaking duo that ever lived, an American woman and her husband who invented the modern science of cryptology together and used it to confront the evils of their time, solving puzzles that unmasked Nazi spies and helped win World War II.

4 editions

Review of 'The Woman Who Smashed Codes' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I had never heard of Elizebeth Friedman before reading this book, and that's a shame! I ended up finding her personal history just as engaging as the technical sections. Reading history books is not exactly my idea of a good time, and that goes double for war history. Following Elizebeth's life and career through times of peace and war was fascinating though! The author did a great job conveying the mutual respect and camaraderie Elizebeth had with her husband and codebreaking teams.

Unsurprisingly, many of the ideas in this book are as applicable today as they were in Elizebeth's pencil & paper world:

On the security of cryptographic systems -

The strength of a cryptographic system usually has less to do with its design than with the way people tend to use it. Humans are the weak link.


On the importance of open science reproducibility -
&

Then they wrote …
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