The Woman Who Smashed Codes
by Jason Fagone · first published 2017
83% recommend17% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Narrative biography of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, a largely unsung pioneer of cryptography whose codebreaking work ran alongside Turing's; suits readers curious about codes, WWII intelligence, and overlooked history.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Traces the life of Elizebeth Smith, who met and married groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman and worked with him to discover and expose Nazi spy rings in South America by cracking multiple versions of the Enigma machine. "In 1916, a young Quaker schoolteacher and poetry scholar named Elizebeth Smith was hired by an eccentric tycoon to find the secret messages he believed were embedded in Shakespeare's plays. She moved to the tycoon's lavish estate outside of Chicago expecting to spend her days poring through old books. But the rich man's close ties to the U.S. government, and the urge
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on “Annual survey of book recommendations” ↗A couple of highly rated books mentioned in the article: Code Girls: https://www.amazon.com/Code-Girls-Untold-American-Breakers/d... The Woman Who Smashed Codes: https://www.amazon.com/Woman-Who-Smashed-Codes-Outwitted/dp/...
on “Genevieve Grotjan unraveled enemy codes during World War II (2018)” ↗…Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution 7. Easternization: Asia’s Rise and America’s Decline from Obama to Trump and Beyond 8. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry 9. The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies
on “Best Tech Books of 2017” ↗…interesting biography of Elizebeth Smith Friedman who is a total unsung hero and the founding mother of the science of cryptography. Her team with the Coast Guard cracked enigmas in parallel to Turing. The Woman Who Smashed Codes, by Jason Fagone.
on “Rare and hardest to crack Enigma code machine sells for $437k” ↗On the American side, "The Woman Who Smashed Codes" by Jason Fagone is really good.
on “Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101” ↗also, a book just came out about Elizebeth Friedman and how a lot of her contributions to cryptology and the birth of sigint in general have been erased from histroy: https://www.amazon.com/Woman-Who-Smashed-Codes-Outwitted-ebo... it's supposed to be very good, but I just started it last night so don't have much of an opinion yet.
on “Famous cryptographers’ tombstone cryptogram decrypted” ↗