The writing and deciphering of coded messages is part of everyday life in the age of electronic banking and online transactions, yet cryptography has been vital to human affairs for millennia. Here German astronomer Rudolf Kippenhahn updates his stylishly written, surprisingly lively chronicle of codes and codebreaking—full of detailed examples and vivid anecdotes—while exploring the cryptographer's craft and explaining the relevance of codes to our high-tech society.

"A breezy survey of codes, ranging from the betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots ... to the nature of credit card security."—NYTimes

"Well known stories from the cryptographic archive, spliced together with pleasant literary excursions into fictive tales and much how-toing for the novice on code construction."—Globe and Mail (Toronto)