Cryptonomicon By Neal Stephenson

ISBN 10: 0060575506

ISBN 13: 9780060575502

With this extraordinary first volume in what promises to be an epochmaking masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this centuryIn 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse mathematical genius and young Captain in the US Navy is assigned to detachment 2702 It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt The mission of Watrehouse and Detatchment 2702commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoeis to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemys fabled Enigma code It is a game, a cryptographic chess match between Waterhouse and his German counterpart, translated into action by the gungho Shaftoe and his forcesFastforward to the present, where Waterhouses cryptohacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a data haven in Southeast Asia a place where encrypted data can be stored and exchanged free of repression and scrutiny As governments and multinationals attack the endeavor, Randy joins forces with Shaftoes toughasnails grandaughter, Amy, to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi sumarine that holds the key to keeping the dream of a data haven afloat But soon their scheme brings to light a massive conspiracy with its roots in Detachment 2702 linked to an unbreakable Nazi code called Arethusa And it will represent the path to unimaginable riches and a future of personal and digital libertyor to universal totalitarianism rebornA breathtaking tour de force, and Neal Stephensons most accomplished and affecting work to date, CRYPTONOMICON is profound and prophetic, hypnotic and hyperdriven, as it leaps forward and back between World War II and the World Wide Web, hinting all the while at a dark dayaftertomorrow It is a work of great art, thought, and creative daring the product of a truly icon