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Lot's of one-time-pads available for $15 each! [was: Nth digit of PI]

Aahz Maruch aahz at netcom.com
Fri Jun 16 15:23:45 EDT 2000 
In article <Pine.A32.3.90.1000616142212.16829D-100000 at elvis.med.Virginia.EDU>,
Steven D. Majewski <sdm7g at virginia.edu> wrote:
>
>Only problems is that encryption based on a physical artifact is 
>vulnerable to physical snooping: someone dressed in black breaks into
>your house in the middle of the night and catalogs your CD collection 
>( or if you're not too smart, finds the one left sitting next to the
>computer! ) Books used to be used as one time pads, and they had the
>same vulnerability -- sometimes it was possible, by close inspection, 
>to tell where the book had been frequently left open. ( The Bible 
>was a popular choice, as there were reasons to make carrying one
>around constantly not be considered suspicious behaviour. ) 

Close, but no cigar.  What you're describing that's vulnerable is the
use of a book as an encryption key rather than a one-time pad.  If it
were literally a one-time pad, there'd be no particular physical marks.
Of course, I don't think the concept of a one-time pad existed as such
back then.
--
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