Lot's of one-time-pads available for $15 each! [was: Nth digit of PI]
Steven D. Majewski
sdm7g at virginia.edu
Fri Jun 16 16:11:07 EDT 2000
On 16 Jun 2000, Aahz Maruch wrote:
> Close, but no cigar. What you're describing that's vulnerable is the
> use of a book as an encryption key rather than a one-time pad. If it
> were literally a one-time pad, there'd be no particular physical marks.
> Of course, I don't think the concept of a one-time pad existed as such
> back then.
Well -- the concept of one time pads goes back to the 1920's or earlier,
and the ones the German's used were written down on paper -- the "one
time" implied that they were destroyed after they were used.
It's a modern day computer notion that even better than a real physical
pad of paper that can be intercepted or stolen, is a shared algorithm that
generates a random one time pad.
But your "Close, but no cigar" comment is justified on other grounds:
the one time pad is supposed to be random, and using a non random pad
makes it theoretically vulnerable. I just wonder how practically
vulnerable it is, given a extremely large choice of non-random bit-streams
to choose from.
I believe the idea of using a book text as an easily shared but very
large key is a pretty ancient idea --certainly predating the one-time pad.
Does anyone have a reference ? I can't remember where I first saw it
mentioned.
-- Steve Majewski
Cut wood, carry water.
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