Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Community SANS Boston 2007 day 3

I'm blogging live from Community SANS Boston 2007. Right now the Red Sox are on, and winning game 1 of the World Series 6-1.

We started on the Crypto domain today; my favorite domain. The history of crypto is fascinating: the course of history has changed due to crypto. I recommended The Codebreakers by David Kahn to my students; it is a fantastic history of crypto, up through the late 1960s. The story of the Japanese Purple Machine is fascinating. Cracking the purple machine saved untold thousands of lives, shaved years off World War II in the Pacific theater, lead to a decisive victory in the Battle of Midway Island, and changed the course of the war.

Miguel, one of my students, recommended The Code Book by Simon Singh, and Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. I have added them to my Amazon list.

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