From the earliest days of mankind, people have sought to pass on secret messages via code - and for almost as long, cryptographers have tried to break the codes. Most famous of all were those at Bletchley Park who managed to break the Nazis' 'unbreakable' Enigma code.This fascinating and intriguing book examines some of the most difficult codes in history that have withstood years of investigation and shows the reader how they too can learn to solve or create almost any code. Sometimes, as with the notorious Zodiac Killer or the Voynich Manuscript, the codes remain unsolved, or as with Kryptos in the CIA's headquarters only 90 per cent has been decoded. In the final element of the book, working with a team of top cryptographers, the author has devised his own code, based on the techniques that have been revealed throughout the book, and invites the reader to crack the code...

The complete story of how the German Enigma codes were broken. Perfect for fans of THE IMITATION GAME, the new film on Alan Turing's Enigma code, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Breaking the German Enigma codes was not only about brilliant mathematicians and professors at Bletchley Park. There is another aspect of the story which it is only now possible to tell. It takes in the exploits of spies, naval officers and ordinary British seamen who risked, and in some cases lost, their lives snatching the vital Enigma codebooks from under the noses of Nazi officials and from sinking German ships and submarines. This book tells the whole Enigma story: its original invention and use by German forces and how it was the Poles who first cracked - and passed on to the British - the key to the German airforce Enigma. The more complicated German Navy Enigma appeared to them to be unbreakable.

December, 1932 In the bathroom of a Belgian hotel, a French spymaster photographs top-secret documents – the operating instructions of the cipher machine, Enigma. A few weeks later a mathematician in Warsaw begins to decipher the coded communications of the Third Reich and lays the foundations for the code-breaking operation at Bletchley Park. The co-operation between France, Britain and Poland is given the cover-name 'X, Y & Z'. December, 1942 It is the middle of World War Two. The Polish code-breakers have risked their lives to continue their work inside Vichy France, even as an uncertain future faces their homeland. Now they are on the run from the Gestapo. People who know the Enigma secret are not supposed to be in the combat zone, so MI6 devises a plan to exfiltrate them. If it goes wrong, if they are caught, the consequences could be catastrophic for the Allies. Based on original research and newly released documents, X, Y & Z is the exhilarating story of those who risked their lives to protect the greatest secret of World War Two.

“An absorbing and thoroughly well documented account” of WWII naval intelligence and the Allied hunt for the Nazi code machine known as the Enigma (Warship). From the start of World War II to mid-1943, British and American naval forces fought a desperate battle against German submarine wolfpacks. And the Allies might have lost the struggle at sea without an astounding intelligence coup. Here, the author brings to life the race to break the German U-boat codes. As the Battle of the Atlantic raged, Hitler’s U-boats reigned. To combat the growing crisis, ingenious amateurs joined the nucleus of dedicated professionals at Bletchley Park to unlock the continually changing German naval codes. Their mission: to read the U-boat messages of Hitler’s cipher device, the Enigma. They first found success with the capture of U-110,—which yielded the Enigma machine itself and a trove of secret documents. Then the weather ship Lauenburg seized near the Arctic ice pack provided code settings for an entire month. Finally, two sailors rescued a German weather cipher that enabled the team at Bletchley to solve the Enigma after a year-long blackout. In “a highly recommended account with a wealth of materials” Seizing the Enigma tells the story of a determined corps of people who helped turn the tide of the war (Naval Historical Foundation).

Codes can carry big secrets! Throughout history, lots of good guys and lots of bad guys have used codes to keep their messages under wraps. This fun and flippable nonfiction features stories of hidden treasures, war-time maneuverings, and contemporary hacking as well as explaining the mechanics behind the codes in accessible and kid friendly forms. Sidebars call out activities that invite the reader to try their own hand at cracking and crafting their own secret messages. This is the launch of an exciting new series that invites readers into a STEM topic through compelling historical anecdotes, scientific backup, and DIY projects.