Luckily I read other books like The Da Vinci Code first before reading this one, or else I would have never continued reading Dan Brown‘s work… Both the plot and characters are barely believable, and I just couldn’t enjoy this one. While his later work still might be worth the read, I suggest staying away from Digital Fortress.

They both find out that things are not as they seem, and certain persons can’t be trusted… And the TRANSLTR is in bigger trouble than most are willing to see. Susan meanwhile is trying to find out the identity of the only other person that has code, North Dakota. While he tries to get it, he is chased by a hitman, and is forced to do some heroic acts to survive. With the help of the ´perfect´ couple Susan Fletcher – the head Cryptographer at the NSA – and David Becker – a foreign-language specialist- Strathmore tries to get the special password to stop Digital Fortress from ruining the future of NSA.ĭavid is send to Seville to find the ring Tankado was wearing, supposedly with the code ingraved. It’s up to Commander Strathmore to stop him. A former NSA employee Tankado treathens to publish a new programm ( Digital Fortress) which code is unbreakable. And more importantly, nobody outside NSA knows the computer exists.

A lot of people would see it as a breach of privacy, but it also helps prevent terrorist attacks.

The National Security Agency NSA has a new computer, the TRANSLTR, which can decipher any code and unlock its secret message. Take the end as an example: a bunch of the brightest people in the US cannot see straight away the puzzle Tankado left them was about chemical elements and afterwards take 20 minutes to figure out what’s the prime difference between Uranium-235 and Uranium-238? Yeah, right. Even though I’m not a specialist in cryptology and computers (I’m just a simple philologist), I noticed a lot of errors, and the plot and characters were not believable. To be honest, I’m surprised it was that bad, especially when you keep in mind Brown is so highly praised by millions. The only reason I read Digital Fortress to the end was because I kept believing that it must get better eventually. I know Digital Fortress is his first book, but it made me wonder how on earth he was able to get his second one published. I think I just un-became a Dan Brown fan. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guards ? If we’re the guards of society, then who will watch us and make sure that we’re not dangerous?”

2023 Netgalley And Edelweiss Reading Challenge.

2017 Netgalley And Edelweiss Reading Challenge.

Digital fortress by dan brown