Cypherdenizens, There's always a lot of speculation about one-time pads, schemes for rewritable CDs and CD-ROMs, etc. Stuff about how to generate sufficiently random bits to fill the CD or DAT, how to distribute the media securely (and isn't that always where the rubber meets the road?), and so on. I don't wish to quash this enthusiasm, but one-time pads are an overall "lose" for the Cypherpunks cause. In fact, the whole modern era of crypto came about with the invention by Diffie and Hellman of assymmetric, or public-key crypto. A return to "secret codes" and symmetric cyphers--except as used inside the guts of public key systems, of course, as with DES or IDEA--is a return to the old days where the economics of transporting and securing key material left crypto in a limited number of niches. The "key distribution" problem is of course the killer. Even if rewritable CDs come down in price (machines are currently a few K, blank disks are at least $25 apiece....more than I plan to pay!), who wants to have, say, a hundred or more disks to communicate with the hundred or more e-mail recipients one might reasonably have (these numbers are not central)? And I'll trust a public key cypher with a key disk (or Newton-like PDA) and a memorized passphrase a lot more than I'll trust a stack of CD-ROMs which I can't reasonably carry with me at all times. All in all, a lose. The "Crypto Phase Change" (tm) won't happen because we convince ordinary folks to start burning one-time pads into CDs and CD-ROMs. Face it. Sorry to sound grumpy about this, but the advocates of one-time pads need to do some strategic thinking about this issue. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.