There have been some recent discussions on the list about generating random number using "thermal" noise from diodes and from radio receivers. I thought some of you might be interested in this fictional depiction of a Random Number Generator from Tom Clancy's book "The Sum of all Fears". The story also touches on the topic of distributing OTP's on CD-ROMS, a topic discussed some time back on this list. -------- story by Tom Clancy, typos by me....-------- "Tell me about it. I haven't been briefed in" "Essential it's our own version of the TAPDANCE. It's a one-time pad with transpositions stored on laser-disk CD ROM. The transpositions are generated from atmospheric radio noise, then super encrypted with noise from later in the day - atmospheric noise is prety random, and by using two separate sets of the noise, and using a computer-generated random algorithm to mix the two, well, the mathematicians say that's as random as it gets. The transpositions are generated by computer and fed onto laser disks in realtime. We use a different disk for everyday of the year. Each disk is unique, two copies only, one to the station, one in MERCURY- no backups. The laser-disk reader we use at both ends looks normal, but has a beefed-up laser, and as it reads the transposition codes from the disk it also burns them right off the plastic. When the disk is used up, or the day ends- and the day will end first, since we're talking billions of characters per disk- the disk is destroyed by baking it in a microwave oven. That takes two minutes. It ought to be secure as hell. It can only be compromised at three stages: fist when the disks ar manufactured; second, from disk-storage here,: third, from disk storage at each station. Compromise of one station does not compromise anyone else. ..... ---------- end of quoted material (ciphers were discussed several times in the book, but I won't take up bandwidth to reproduce them all) Jim Pinson Galapagos