🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <434@ethz.UUCP> wyle@ethz.UUCP writes:
>An unnamed organization uses the following paradigm to pass secure
>information electronically:
>
>Random bits, generated from a radioactive source and calibrated counter
>are collected, and distributed by courier to remote sites.
>
>Messages are encoded via bit-wise exclusive-or, and transmitted via
>non-secure telecommunications.  The destinations use the courier-provided 
>random bits from the key tape to decode the messages.  Each bit is
>discarded after use.  Every few months, a new tape is sent by courier.
>They will, of course, move to optical disk soon to decrease courier
>trips, and allow for increased bandwidth.
>
>How is the system flawed?  Is it unbreakable?  Couldn't companies
>implement this strategy cost-effectively?

This is called the one-time-pad.  It is perfect (if you have a perfect
random number generator that is).

The problems are these:  You need a secure communications channel to
transmit the key.  The keys are *very* long.  You need a different key
between every sender-receiver pair unless you trust *all* your stations
completely.
		-ed falk, sun microsystems
terrorist, cryptography, DES, drugs, cipher, secret, decode, NSA, CIA, NRO.
(The above is food for the NSA line eater.)