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The Science of Secrecy

Ever since humans began writing, they have been writing in code, and these codes have decided the fates of empires. In The Science of Secrecy Simon Singh traces the evolution of methods of encryption and reveals the dramatic effects of codes on wars, nations, and individual lives. As we enter the Information Age, encryption is becoming more and more important to all of us, and the series also looked at issues of online security and asked if there are lessons we can learn from the past.

• The Babington plot - Mary Queen of Scots, treason and the substitution cipher.
  
  
• Hieroglyphs - The cracking of the hieroglyphic code, the key to the ancient Egyptian civilisation.
  
  
• Le chiffre indéchiffrable - How the Vigenère cipher, the 'indecipherable cipher', was cracked.
  
  
• The Zimmermann telegram - Deciphering this telegram from the German foreign minister was the most important episode in the history of wartime cryptography. Pages loaded with this programme include the story of the cracking of the Enigma code during the Second World War.
  
  
• Going public - public-key cryptography and security on the internet.

Visit the Channel 4 online shop to order your copy of Simon Singh's The Science of Secrecy. This work, which accompanied the Channel 4 series, brings to life the history of codes and code breaking. Each chapter narrates an episode from the history of codes.

Find out more

Secrecy and Simon Singh

Graphic version
Includes layout and images.

Credits

Published in 2000 by Channel 4 to accompany The Science of Secrecy, a Diverse production for Channel 4, first broadcast in October-November 2000.

Author: Simon Singh

Editor: Paula Snyder

Assistant editor: Mandy Richards

Editorial consultant: Peter Millson

Design: Edition

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