Although at first I was a little miffed about the idea of reading an entire novel over break, but it was actually a pretty relaxing read and some points the author made were really thought provoking. Sometimes I felt he was trying to be too hip – I suppose this is a common occurrence in a lot of teen fiction – every time I read “total horn-dog” I was thinking, “what?” But that’s neither here nor there. There were a number of quotes that I really thought about, like when Marcus was arguing for the absolute protection of the Bill of Rights, and the total non-professionalism some of the authority figures in the book seemed to exude, but Marcus also pointed out something very important. “I can’t go underground for a year, ten years, my whole life, waiting for freedom to be handed to me. Freedom is something you have to take for yourself.” Inspiring, isn’t it?

Truly, nothing will be accomplished by passivity. The constant activism and solving problems is what propels movements forward – awareness will get something started, but there must be steps taken beyond that. Cryptography is similarly a constantly evolving subject, requiring analysis that is always considering different options and perspectives. It couldn’t progress so efficiently if cryptanalysts were always waiting for other cryptanalysts to decipher notes themselves – and in many cases, that’s exactly what they don’t want to happen.