Re: One Time Pads $5000|Cheap
One disadvantage of CDROMs is that you lose a major advantage that real paper one-time pads had - once you had used a page, you could burn it. With a CD-ROM, presumably the whole pad *will* last you a while, and you probably don't want to melt the outer tracks of the disk as you use them up... So you either send ~600MB of secret stuff or waste the disk, depending on how secure your communications needs are and how soon you expect to be busted. Bill # Bill Stewart Old address: wcs@anchor.ho.att.com AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ # After 10/15, NCR, 6870 Koll Center Parkway, Pleasanton CA, 94566 # Voice/Beeper 510-224-7043, Phone 510-484-6204, email bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com
Bill Stewart <9312121323.AA10300@anchor.ho.att.com> you wrote:
One disadvantage of CDROMs is that you lose a major advantage that real paper one-time pads had - once you had used a page, you could burn it. With a CD-ROM, presumably the whole pad *will* last you a while, and you probably don't want to melt the outer tracks of the disk as you use them up... So you either send ~600MB of secret stuff or waste the disk, depending on how secure your communications needs are and how soon you expect to be busted.
I'm not sure about the format of writable CD-ROMs; but with other write-only media the default state of a bit is X and you write by changing some of the bits to Y. This being the case, you could conceivably zap part of the disk by writting them as all Ys. This would require everyone to have a CD-ROM writer not just a reader. Another problem is even if the media itself has this capability the standard writer devices are going to want to write block checksums etc.; which is probably going to fail. Bill Bogstad bogstad@cs.jhu.edu
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I'm not sure about the format of writable CD-ROMs; but with other write-only media the default state of a bit is X and you write by changing some of the bits to Y. This being the case, you could conceivably zap part of the disk by writting them as all Ys. This would require everyone to have a CD-ROM writer not just a reader. Another problem is even if the media itself has this capability the standard writer devices are going to want to write block checksums etc.; which is probably going to fail.
Right, but as the price drops more people will be able to afford one? I would sure be willing to spend a few hundred on a CD-ROM writer (that's how much the readers cost now, right?) in order to make/destroy OTPs. (And by the time the price *does* go down that far, I should have the money to buy it, hopefully.) On checksums-- I wouldn't know how the devices work, but that looks like a task for a talented cypherpunks hardware hacker. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLQtWpXi7eNFdXppdAQELCQP8CR73zD0OLf6cmmGz+eAk19WkDw+lMmK3 WAoHpa1exR/LWvP9sWycxbshVuqIRDPfA+exM6gqzuuMxdfTIS/OiocTlKHy7+oW /OY+drLhMIS+W6w66r44LgPzk3cquRMEtkZVHoFTXdNb6qlL1DxjWRbKs6xkEs/V KMhCDLPqH2U= =WhDM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
a conscious being, Sameer wrote:
Right, but as the price drops more people will be able to afford one? I would sure be willing to spend a few hundred on a CD-ROM writer (that's how much the readers cost now, right?) in order to make/destroy OTPs. (And by the time the price *does* go down that far, I should have the money to buy it, hopefully.) On checksums-- I wouldn't know how the devices work, but that looks like a task for a talented cypherpunks hardware hacker.
checksum might be solved by using multisession CD-ROMs. Cheaper hardware might be found in the mini-disc format or digital audio tapes??? /hawk
/hawk
[ about one-time pads... ]
checksum might be solved by using multisession CD-ROMs. Cheaper hardware might be found in the mini-disc format or digital audio tapes???
i like the DAT or mini-disc idea. cheap and easy... dump a bunch of digital noise onto two DATs. burn them when you are thru with them. i like it. the problem would come when you leave the tapes lying around by accident instead of burning them... or if you don't go thru them frequently enough, still have half a tape left when your Opponent nabs it. do you have to burn the tape for really good security? would overwriting it be enough...? with a mini-disc it would be really easy to everwrite the onetime pad when you are done with part of it, somewhat easy for DATs. (gear does exist to extract previous recordings from residual magnetics... but is expensive from what i understand.) DAT would be better for large files, minidisc for short messages... man! this is a cheap and fast way to get the ball rolling... adam
participants (5)
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adam fast -
bogstad＠blaze.cs.jhu.edu -
Harry Shapiro -
Sameer -
wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com