🚀 go-pugleaf

>
>It is very easy for an exclusive-or to fail.  Too many zeroes and plain
>text is the result.  Too many ones and it is inverted plain text.
>-- 
>Scot E. Wilcoxon   Minn Ed Comp Corp  {quest,dayton,meccts}!mecc!sewilco
>(612)481-3507           sewilco@MECC.COM       ihnp4!meccts!mecc!sewilco
>   


All of these discussions of the failure of exclusive-or depend upon the
pad of random bits to not be random.  If the bits are "sufficiently"
random, the likelihood that a message of length 20 comes through with
no errors is exactly the same as the string "I killed John Lennon".
Also, the chance that the transmitted message differs from the real
message by K bits is exactly the same as the chance as the transmission
differing from "I killed John Lennon" by K bits.  The only problem
arises when the decoding of the known header gives the code breaker
enough information to predict the bits of the "random" pad.

Eddie Grove

P.S.  I did not kill John Lennon.