Cryptonomicon

Cryptonomicon is a major novel by the American science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, published in 1999. The Chinese edition, translated by Liu Sihan and Han Yang, was published by New Star Press in August 2017, runs to about 1,280 pages, and is issued in three volumes. The novel advances along two alternating timelines. One is set during the Second World War: Lawrence Waterhouse, a mathematical prodigy and young naval officer, is assigned to the highly classified Unit 2702, whose task is not to break codes but to do everything possible to conceal the fact that the Allies have already cracked the German Enigma cipher and to mislead the enemy through disinformation. The dangerous operations that carry out these plans fall to Marine Corps sergeant Bobby Shaftoe, while Shaftoe's old friend, the Japanese mining engineer Goto Dengo, is also dispatched to the Philippines on a secret mission; the fates of the three men become tightly intertwined in the war. The other timeline moves to the late 1990s, when Waterhouse's grandson Randy Waterhouse, a cryptographic hacker, is working with partners in Southeast Asia to build a "data haven" for encrypted data, laying undersea fiber-optic cable and investigating sunken ships; Shaftoe's descendants are drawn in as well, and a conspiracy involving Unit 2702, the Nazi cipher "Aretusa," and a vast fortune in gold gradually comes to light. Much of the book discusses cryptography, the Turing machine, the gold standard, electronic money, and information freedom, and it has been hailed by many IT professionals as a "geek Bible."