In chapter one of The Code Book, Simon Signh writes, “Cryptanalysis could not be invented until a civilization had reached a sufficiently sophisticated level of scholarship in several disciplines, including mathematics, statistics, and linguistics.” (p. 15) This is a valid point. However, the necessity of education to become a cryptanalyst during the period of deep reflection in 610 AD, has changed dramatically in the modern world.

600 AD was not, by any means, a time of accessible education. Ptolemy’s influence had just reached the world in 100 AD, and Brahmagupta, who developed rules for the mathematical applications of 0, was just becoming prominent. Some of our basic principles were still being discovered. Needless to say, not everyone could afford the luxuries of schooling, even in basic subjects. 

Today, we have much more than ever before. Public schooling is essentially available to all of the western world, and many more people have the ability to learn the disciplines required to be an amatur cryptanalyst without prestiguous schooling. The fact that we can now use the “on our own” approach to achieve what many long before us needed ages to accomplish, is not something that should be looked upon shamefully, but instead as an indication of how far society has come.