Digital Fortress

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown is a suspense/thriller.  It deals with the "ultimate code" that is considered  dangerous, powerful and unbreakable. The National Security Agency (NSA) has a computer which it calls TRANSLTR that is very successful in breaking codes but as far as the public knows it was a complete failure.  This computer is located in a place known to those who work there as Crypto.

Susan Fletcher and her fiance, David Becker had planned a trip to Stone Manor which has to be postponed when David is called away.  She is then called into work by her boss, Commander Strathmore on Saturday due to an emergency.  David is a foreign language specialist who is employed by Georgetown University but to make extra money he will translate for government agencies.  They met when he was called in by the NSA to help translate a code.  Susan had been breaking codes since she was in junior high school.  Susan taught David how to break simple codes.

David had been sent to Spain to find a pass-key that Ensei Tankado had before he died.  Pass-keys are the way to get into some programs.  Tankado was known to be the programmer of Digital Fortress which was an encrypted program that people could download for free but could not open with out the key.  His program is considered to be unbreakable even by TRANSLTR.   Why was this important to NSA?  Tankado's program would kill intelligence gathering of the United States.

Supposedly. Tankado had a person named NDakota who might have a copy of the pass-key.  Susan was trying to find who NDakota was while David was trying to track down Tankado's ring in Spain.  She was completely unaware of where he was or what he was doing.  People in Spain are being killed and others in Crypto are wondering what is going on with TRANSLTR as it had never taken more than three hours to solve a code.  Was it a virus?  Who is NDAkota?  What is the pass-key?  Do David and Susan make it through the book and back to Stone Manor?  I had to read the book to find out, so I will not give away any secrets.


This book is very easy to get through.  There were times that I did not wish to put it down.  I always loved codes though I am not good at solving them without hints.  I liked this book more than the Da Vinci Code.  My girlfriend from Philadelphia lent me her copy and I wish I did not have to return it to her.