Fifty-two papers arranged into five sections make up this second volume of papers selected from the magazine Cryptologia. Section 1, “Cryptologic Personalities,” contains six bibliographical papers about cryptological personalities, including two about the Polish mathematicians who solved the German Enigma machine before World War II. Section 2, “History,” consists of 12 papers dealing with cryptography during the two World Wars and the period between them.
Section 3, “Analysis,” presents nine papers about cryptanalysis. Eight of them involve the use of computers in cryptanalysis. One of these papers, of particular interest to me, deals with the breaking of the encryption provided in the WordPerfect word processing package. Part 4, “Cryptographic Machines,” contains nine papers on cryptographic devices ranging in complexity from an 1817 two-wheel device invented by Colonel Decius Wadsworth to the famous Enigma machine, which in 1945 had five rotors.
Section 5, “Ciphers--Historical and Challenging,” collects 16 papers describing challenge cryptograms, including the three Beale ciphers, the middle of which has been solved and implies that the first leads to a hidden treasure. Another pair of papers in this section describes premiums offered by Ovaltine and other sponsors in the age of radio serials, typified by the Captain Midnight decoder ring.
This book should appeal to many who are interested in the field of secret writing, ranging from those whose interest is limited to solving cryptograms in daily newspapers, to computer professionals who view cryptography as an interesting application, to professional cryptanalysts whose life work depends on creating or breaking secure communications.