From: kkirksey@world.std.com (Ken B Kirksey)
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 93 07:49:46 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: PC Based One-Time Pad
Message-ID: <199311271548.AA13076@world.std.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>In article <199311251654.AA02190@world.std.com>
>           kkirksey@world.std.com "Ken B Kirksey" writes:
> > While I was reading though _Applied Cryptography_ last night, a thought
> > struck me (no damage):  Why hasn't anyone come up with a good Mac or PC based
> > One-Time Pad system.  
> 
>Because they're trivial to write.  I could do one in less that 15 minutes.

I can see that for the XOR code, but the code (and possibly hardware) for
generating, testing, and managing the pad files would take considerably
longer, at least for me.  You may be SuperHacker, though. :-)

> > It seems like this would be a fairly easy system to implement, but since
> > no one (to my knowledge) has yet done so, there must be something I'm
> > missing. :-)  
>
>Because very few people can be bothered driving half way across the
>country to deliver the OTPs.  It's *way* too much hassle for day to
>day use of the kind we use pgp for.  And if someone *is* doing it
>for real security (like say AT&T shipping around their secure phone
>circuit diagrams because they don't trust clipper :-) ) then they're
>*not* going to be mentioning it in passing on usenet news groups...

Well, it would really be one of those "just to see if I can do it"
projects.  I think that someone might find a use for it someday, though.
Besides, it would be fun to write.

>PS No, you *don't* send them in the mail.  But you knew that, right?

No, I'm not as stupid as I look. <g>


                             Ken

=============================================================================
Ken Kirksey            kkirksey@world.std.com            Mac Guru & Developer
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