YHK - yet another hacker news clone

19 points mike_richards 1 day ago 20 comments

We are looking for a Cryptography book recommendation to read with our 10 year old who loves making up his own ciphers. He loves reading adult math and science books with us at breakfast like Ignition!, Humble Pi, and The Hunt for Vulcan. All of the kids books that we've found are just puzzles, but I don't want to get something way over his head math-wise. A good history with basic theory behind the different types would be perfect. Thanks!

cryptoalex 1 day ago | parent

I would suggest Real-World Cryptography by DAVID WONG. It has good introduction covering basic primitives like various hash functions, MAC, KDF, then sym/asym, and so on, all the way to PQC and protocols design. A nice intro book, maybe your 10 y.o. will find it interesting.

P.S. In fact, I was going to send that book to my friend's son who is about same age, and who got some sudden interest in cryptography recently. So it is safe to say that I am now aware of at least two 10 year olds who have interest in Cryptography. I feel a bit surprised, but in a good way :)

mike_richards 1 day ago | parent

Thanks we'll check it out.

He started with inventing his own alphabet and language as he was learning to read and write, which eventually evolved into reinventing the Secret Decoder Ring with increasing complexity, so we want to encourage him in his adventure.

nukular 1 day ago | parent

Work with your llms and figure out a “zero knowledge proof” game that can be played on paper.

Something like that would be practical.

mike_richards 1 day ago | parent

OK, Thanks for the suggestion for a practical exercise.

nukular 1 day ago | parent

Oops and that’s “zero knowledge proof”!

mike_richards 1 day ago | parent

Besides practical books does anyone have opinions about these?

The Code Book by Simon Singh

The Codebreakers by David Kahn

The Mathematics of Secrets by Joshua Holden

nephihaha 55 minutes ago | parent

Simon Singh is a very entertaining writer, I'll give him that. (Also a pleasant person, I've met him once or twice.)

dgacmu 54 minutes ago | parent

The Codebreakers is a fantastic book and I highly recommend it. I don't know what I think of it for a ten-year-old, it's been a while since I've read it, but my memory is that it is certainly mathematically accessible, but its length and depth may make it daunting, as it probably exceeds the attention horizon of a typical ten-year-old by an order of magnitude or two. But in chunks it could work, and for an adult it's fantastic.

It does assume a fair bit of historical context knowledge, though, much of which probably exceeds 5th grade. Probably 9th graders would have it easier as far as, e.g., familiarity with WWII, etc.

helph67 29 minutes ago | parent

There was a television series (British?) featuring some of the tales mentioned in David Kahn's book. The TV series could be a good introduction for children. Another book of interest may be Crypto by Stephen Levy - Viking Penguin 2001. Which relates how "rebels beat the (U.S.) government - saving privacy in the Digital Age".

mlyle 58 minutes ago | parent

There's an edition of The Code Book for youth: https://www.amazon.com/clp/0385900325?lv=shuf&channelId=500

jszymborski 56 minutes ago | parent

Maybe The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allen Poe? Although the language might be a bit baroque.

lazystar 53 minutes ago | parent

this, but for a 10 year old consider getting the Great Illustrated Classics abridged version. i read it when i was 10, and it kinda blew my mind.

buredoranna 44 minutes ago | parent

I very much remember this, from when I was ten or so.

In the same vein, is the "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Dancing_M...

dustfinger 52 minutes ago | parent

Title: Can You Crack the Code?: A Fascinating History of Ciphers and Cryptography

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1681195143 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1681195148

Title: Top Secret: A Handbook of Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0763629723 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0763629724

vessenes 51 minutes ago | parent

Not a book but you could construct a little walk through some historical crypto as fun games to play. Caesar cipher, Vigenere cipher, one time pad, then learn about primes and make some repeating keys..you could do a super simple matrix example to make tiny DES s-boxes. I bet claude could come up with some games / fun little exploration things to do together, and you and your son could do a lot of fun motivating math together. You could anchor it with rewards like pictures of you and your partner or some family history or stuff that feels like a treasure hunt.

Mine are out of the house, but I had a few who might have really liked doing something like this.. could make a nice Christmas present, the first mysterious letter..

whalesalad 43 minutes ago | parent

Not a cryptography book but highly recommended for the young curious mind: The Cuckoo's Egg

jedberg 30 minutes ago | parent

Don't forget about the NSAs CryptoKids!

https://web.archive.org/web/20100128072801/http://www.nsa.go...

(They went offline a few administrations ago, hence the archive link)

You can also jump around the timeline in the archive to see different versions.

throwaway81523 19 minutes ago | parent

Alvin's Secret Code by Clifford B. Hicks. That's the one that got me started. I think I read it in 3rd grade (age 8).

myself248 5 minutes ago | parent

Came here to mention this. It's not too applicable to modern/useful cryptography, but introduces a bunch of related hidden-information concepts like product date codes, which I think I actually use far more often.

advael 8 minutes ago | parent

Introduction to Modern Cryptography by Katz and Lindell is from a pedagogical perspective one of the best-structured textbooks I've ever read on computer science topics (and in general, but my exposure to textbooks is a biased sample). It goes into the foundations of cryptographic theory and gives a good basis for understanding and contextualizing even advances that have been made since its publication. I think most children can grasp difficult material if an adult that's good at the meta-skill of teaching is helping them with it via individual attention