Code warriors
by Stephen Budiansky · first published 2016
3mentions
1recommended by
3HN commenters
2016–2021first – last mentioned
33% recommend67% neutral
"A sweeping history of the NSA and its codebreaking achievements from World War II through the Cold War shares insights into the challenges faced by cryptanalysts and their role in some of the most complicated events of the twentieth century, "--NoveList.
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I first learned about this in the excellent and thought provoking book "Code Warriors" which covers all the ways that US intelligence efforts relied on code breaking after the end of WWII, but were often trumped by the Soviet's superior spy-craft.
on “How a Gift from Schoolchildren Let the Soviets Spy on the U.S. For 7 Years” ↗…techniques were invalidated, this was due to a US agent leaking secrets to adversaries. If the NSA cannot address every insider threat, why do we expect tech companies to be hermetically sealed? [0] Code Warriors, Stephen Budiansky (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/236807/code-warrior...).
on “Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online” ↗Budiansky's Code Warriors emphasized the point that the NSA and its precursors has actively withheld information from the civilian government, including the president. Unfortunately, the very secrecy of it prevent us from knowing…
on “RSA chief believed cryptographers’ warnings on Dual EC DRBG lacked merit (2014)” ↗