Reddit mentions of Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government Saving Privacy in the Digital Age

Clipper initiative, read The Electronic Privacy Papers (http://www.schneier.com/book-privacy.html) or Crypto (http://www.amazon.com/Crypto-Rebels-Government-Privacy-Digital/dp/0140244328/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368651090&sr=8-1&keywords=crypto)

This book details a lot about the way the encryption world worked before PGP and I believe details PGP's creation. It's a pretty dry book at times but a really interesting peek into the NSA's involvement during a critical time.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140244328/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It is an older book FYI so it's statement about saving privacy in the digital age is a little less true now. Good read none the less.

While not a general CS tome, Crypto uses a thrilling narrative to cover one of the core driving applications of Computer Science since Turing; Cryptography, and the various impacts its had on world history and governments, particularly from WW2 on through the 1990s.

http://www.amazon.com/Crypto-Rebels-Government-Privacy-Digital/dp/0140244328/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293288437&sr=8-1

If you want a good historical backing Steven Levy's "Crypto" covers a lot, it's not technical but is very helpful to understand the context and political history.

Seems like yesterday to me. *B-/

If anyone(youngster?) wants to see how we got to where we are today they could do worse than grab a copy of Steven Levy's "Crypto:Secrecy and Privacy in the New Cold War" - don't worry it's very readable.

Not sure when you were born but I'm reading Crypto by Steven Levy right now. Great read. Gives a really good history of the (American) guys that came up with public key encryption and it's distribution to the masses along with all the tension between the NSA and the Government over its development. Once you read it you will realize that we truly are in Cryptowars 2.0 right now. The same exact arguments used back then are being used now.

If you want a taste of his writing style this is a good read - http://www.wired.com/1999/04/crypto/

Here's the book by him - http://www.amazon.com/Crypto-Rebels-Government-Privacy-Digital/dp/0140244328

here

or here too.

I found it at a used bookstore ten years ago.

You might also enjoy these two:

Crypto by Steven Levy. This is a very approachable, very good read. It doesn't cover the entire history of cryptography. Instead, it chronicles a much small, more modern aspect of it. It begins by talking about the problem of key distribution, how that problem was solved, and how that solution has changed our world.

Cryptanalysis by Helen F. Gaines. This one is very dry reading. It's basically a textbook on how to perform cryptanalysis on encrypted data to figure out the method needed to decrypt it.