The Cipher - Softcover

Ford, John C.

3.61

354 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0147509424 ISBN 13: 9780147509420

Publisher: Speak, 2016

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"Ford's The Cipher is a thrill-a-minute ride. A very cool read."—David Baldacci

You think your emails are private?
Your credit card number is secure?
That stock trades, government secrets, and nuclear codes are safe?
...th1nk aga1n.

Robert “Smiles” Smylie is not a genius. He feels like he’s surrounded by them, though, from his software mogul dad to his brainy girlfriend to his oddball neighbor Ben, a math prodigy. When Ben cracks an ancient, real-life riddle central to modern data encryption systems, he suddenly holds the power to unlock every electronic secret in the world—and Smiles finally has a chance to prove his own worth.

Smiles hatches a plan to protect Ben from the government agents who will stop at nothing to get their hands on his discovery. But as he races from a Connecticut casino to the streets of Boston, enlisting the help of an alluring girl, Smiles comes to realize the most explosive secrets don’t lie between the covers of Ben’s notebook—they’re buried in his own past.

Eerily close to reality and full of shocking twists, this techno-thriller reveals how easily the private can become public, and just how dangerous it can be to encrypt our personal histories.

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About the Author:

John C. Ford (johncfordbooks.com and @fordjohnc) is the author of The Morgue and Me, a YA take on the classic detective novel that was nominated for an Edgar Award and short-listed for five different state teen book awards. A former litigator who practiced in the nation's capital, he eventually returned to his love of writing fiction, and to his hometown outside Detroit, Michigan.

Smiles squinted at Ben. “What are you saying?”
            “I’m saying that in about a half hour I could decode any message that your dad’s company encrypts.”
            Alyce Systems encrypted messages for all kinds of businesses. Smile didn’t really know what they were, but he knew they were big ones.
            “So, you could get all the credit card numbers from Amazon?”
            Ben let out a hard-edged laugh. “Encryption doesn’t just protect credit card numbers. It’s how they keep everything on computer networks secure. People buying stocks. Wire transfers. It’s how they control water systems. Airplanes and missiles. Nuclear power plants, for all I know.”
            Water systems.
            Nuclear power plants.
            The stock market.
Smiles was getting a bigger picture now, and as he did, something heavy settled over his body.
“If somebody got your formula, they could, like, wreck the stock market, couldn’t they?”
            “They could do anything,” Ben said. “Smiles, this algorithm—the government would consider it an instrument of war. You see what terrorists could do with this? The NSA doesn’t even want people talking about little research discoveries. But this is on a different level. This is everything.”

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