A serviceable if too-often superficial update for solid but now-dated histories such as Gary Blackwood’s Mysterious Messages...
Hands-on history for budding spies, hackers, or anyone with a secret message to send.
Though she starts off with a face-plant—a vague claim, with a disappointingly stereotypical illustration, that “the ancient Chinese” had couriers swallow secret messages written on silk—Schwartz goes on to offer a broad and lucid survey of cryptographic strategies. These range from steganography and substitution ciphers to second factor authentication and other recent trends in cybersecurity. She also provides plenty of variously coded examples for readers to decipher as practice, capped by a final challenge to go back and find the clues to a secret message that have been distributed throughout. Her detailed description of how the German Enigma machine worked (and was hacked by the Bletchley Park group in World War II) is indeed “fascinating,” as are the close analyses of still-unsolved messages such as the modern Kryptos inscription outside CIA headquarters. Somewhat less fascinating are the closing chapters, in which she does explain how prime numbers figure in securing internet communications but neglects to mention the possibilities of quantum cryptography and leaves a debatable impression that cyber defenses have been generally successful in staying ahead of “black hat” hackers. Williams adds a diverse group of spot-art figures to go with the array of tables, diagrams, and occasional photos.
A serviceable if too-often superficial update for solid but now-dated histories such as Gary Blackwood’s Mysterious Messages (2009). (index, source list) (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: March 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68119-514-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This glossy, colorful title in the “I Want To Be” series has visual appeal but poor organization and a fuzzy focus, which limits its usefulness. Each double-paged layout introduces a new topic with six to eight full-color photographs and a single column of text. Topics include types of environmentalists, eco-issues, waste renewal, education, High School of Environmental Studies, environmental vocabulary, history of environmentalism, famous environmentalists, and the return of the eagle. Often the photographs have little to do with the text or are marginal to the topic. For example, a typical layout called “Some Alternative Solutions” has five snapshots superimposed on a double-page photograph of a California wind farm. The text discusses ways to develop alternative forms of energy and “encourage environmentally friendly lifestyles.” Photos include “a healer who treats a patient with alternative therapy using sound and massage,” and “the Castle,” a house built of “used tires and aluminum cans.” Elsewhere, “Did You Know . . . ” shows a dramatic photo of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, but the text provides odd facts such as “ . . . that in Saudi Arabia there are solar-powered pay phones in the desert?” Some sections seem stuck in, a two-page piece on the effects of “El Niño” or 50 postage-stamp–sized photos of endangered species. The author concludes with places to write for more information and a list of photo credits. Pretty, but little here to warrant purchase. (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-201862-X
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this companion to Portraits of War: Civil War Photographers and Their Work (1998), Sullivan presents an album of the prominent ships and men who fought on both sides, matched to an engrossing account of the war's progress: at sea, on the Mississippi, and along the South's well-defended coastline. In his view, the issue never was in doubt, for though the Confederacy fought back with innovative ironclads, sleek blockade runners, well-armed commerce raiders, and sturdy fortifications, from the earliest stages the North was able to seal off, and then take, one major southern port after another. The photos, many of which were made from fragile glass plates whose survival seems near-miraculous, are drawn from private as well as public collections, and some have never been published before. There aren't any action shots, since mid-19th-century photography required very long exposure times, but the author compensates with contemporary prints, plus crisp battle accounts, lucid strategic overviews, and descriptions of the technological developments that, by war's end, gave this country a world-class navy. He also profiles the careers of Matthew Brady and several less well-known photographers, adding another level of interest to a multi-stranded survey. (source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7613-1553-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Millbrook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
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