From: phr@napa.Telebit.COM (Paul Rubin)
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 92 19:43:32 PST
To: oren@apple.com
Subject: Rander box and other stuff
In-Reply-To: <9211152148.AA24934@apple.com>
Message-ID: <9211160343.AA11287@napa.TELEBIT.COM>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


    >I have a question regarding the ideas which have been circulating
    >about using CD ROMs as key storage.  How does one go about
    >rapidly and effectively erasing everything on a CD ROM?


  A lab proven method:  Take CD-ROM.  Place in standard kitchen microwave. 
  Set on high power cook for 5 seconds.  Press start.  Watch the action. 
  Hang resulting artifact on wall as curiosity, which is all it's good for
  now.  Let the wave air out a little (this won't fry it).

You should know better than this.  Microwaving cracks the aluminum
coating into a lot of small pieces, but almost all the pieces are
larger than a few square mm. even if you cook until quite "well done".
A few mm. of a CD is a *lot* of contiguous bits that could be
recovered by a determined enough adversary, and you likely wouldn't
ebe bothering with OTP's unless you're concerned with very determined
adversaries.

I agree with the person who griped that OTP's are making excessive
list traffic compared with interesting protocols, etc.
OTP's get rehashed on sci.crypt every few months, as that person
pointed out.