Acknowledgments

While writing this book I have had the privilege of meeting some of the world’s greatest living codemakers and codebreakers, ranging from those who worked at Bletchley Park to those who are developing the ciphers that will enrich the Information Age. I would like to thank Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, who took the time to describe their work to me while I was in sunny California. Similarly, Clifford Cocks, Malcolm Williamson and Richard Walton were enormously helpful during my visit to cloudy Cheltenham. In particular, I am grateful to the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway College, London, who allowed me to attend the M.Sc. course on information security. Professor Fred Piper, Simon Blackburn, Jonathan Tuliani, and Fauzan Mirza all taught me valuable lessons about codes and ciphers.

While I was in Virginia, I was fortunate to be given a guided tour of the Beale treasure trail by Peter Viemeister, an expert on the mystery. Furthermore, the Bedford County Museum and Stephen Cowart of the Beale Cypher and Treasure Association helped me to research the subject. I am also grateful to David Deutsch and Michele Mosca of the Oxford Centre for Quantum Computation, Charles Bennett and his research group at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Laboratories, Stephen Wiesner, Leonard Adleman, Ronald Rivest, Paul Rothemund, Jim Gillogly, Paul Leyland and Neil Barrett.

Derek Taunt, Alan Stripp and Donald Davies kindly explained to me how Bletchley Park broke Enigma, and I was also helped by the Bletchley Park Trust, whose members regularly give enlightening lectures on a variety of topics. Dr. Mohammed Mrayati and Dr. Ibrahim Kadi have been involved in revealing some of the early breakthroughs in Arab cryptanalysis, and were kind enough to send me relevant documents. The periodical Cryptologia also carried articles about Arabian cryptanalysis, as well as many other cryptographic subjects, and I would like to thank Brian Winkel for sending me back issues of the magazines.

I would encourage readers to visit the National Cryptologic Museum near Washington, D.C. and the Cabinet War Rooms in London, and I hope that you will be as fascinated as I was during my visits. Thank you to the curators and librarians of these museums for helping me with my research. When I was pressed for time, James Howard, Bindu Mathur, Pretty Sagoo, Anna Singh and Nick Shearing all helped me to uncover important and interesting articles, books and documents, and I am grateful to them for their efforts. Thanks also go to Antony Buonomo at www.vertigo.co.uk who helped me to establish my Web site.

As well as interviewing experts, I have also depended on numerous books and articles. The list of further reading contains some of my sources, but it is neither a complete bibliography nor a definitive reference list. Instead, it merely includes material that may be of interest to the general reader. Of all the books I have come across during my research, I would like to single out one in particular: The Codebreakers by David Kahn. This book documents almost every cryptographic episode in history, and as such it is an invaluable resource.

Various libraries, institutions and individuals have provided me with photographs. All the sources are listed in the picture credits, but particular thanks go to Sally McClain, for sending me photographs of the Navajo code talkers; Professor Eva Brann, for discovering the only known photo of Alice Kober; Joan Chadwick, for sending me a photo of John Chadwick; and Brenda Ellis, for allowing me to borrow photos of James Ellis. Thanks also go to Hugh Whitemore, who gave me permission to use a quote from his play Breaking the Code, based on Andrew Hodges’ book Alan Turing-The Enigma.

On a personal note, I would like to thank friends and family who put up with me over the two years while I was writing this book. Neil Boynton, Dawn Dzedzy, Sonya Holbraad, Tim Johnson, Richard Singh and Andrew Thompson all helped me to keep sane while I was struggling with convoluted cryptographic concepts. In particular, Bernadette Alves supplied me with a rich mixture of moral support and perceptive criticism. Traveling back in time, thanks also go to all the people and institutions that have shaped my career, including Wellington School, Imperial College and the High Energy Physics Group at Cambridge University; Dana Purvis, at the BBC, who gave me my first break in television; and Roger Highfield, at the Daily Telegraph, who encouraged me to write my first article.

Finally, I have had the enormous good fortune to work with some of the best people in publishing. Patrick Walsh is an agent with a love of science, a concern for his authors and a boundless enthusiasm. He has put me in touch with the kindest and most capable publishers, most notably Fourth Estate, whose staff endure my constant stream of queries with great spirit. Last, but certainly not least, my editors, Christopher Potter, Leo Hollis and Peternelle van Arsdale, have helped me to steer a clear path through a subject that twists and turns its way across three thousand years. For that I am tremendously grateful.