Article View: sci.crypt
Article #4004Re: One time pads?
From: Henry Spencer
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1988 20:00
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1988 20:00
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> Keys that can be carried in one's head (or looked up in commonly available
> books) have a practical advantage here, although they are not absolutely
> secure.
A tip for the aspiring spies :-) in the audience:
Using the text of a book as the key isn't very secure, because a key which
is English text shows strong patterns (although using a book written in
some obscure language might help...). An easy way to make life much harder
for the cryptanalysts is to use a book of *numbers*, say trade statistics
or something like that. Those numbers will show patterns, but they'll be
obscure and they won't be the ones the cryptanalysts are looking for.
--
Those who do not understand Unix are | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry
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Newsgroups: sci.crypt Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: One time pads? Message-ID: <1988Feb19.150017.454@utzoo.uucp> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology References: <4209@june.cs.washington.edu> <1988Feb15.151522.5094@utzoo.uucp>, <7272@brl-smoke.ARPA> Date: Fri, 19-Feb-88 15:00:14 EST