Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!columbia!madonna!travis
From: travis@madonna (Travis Lee Winfrey)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: One time pads?
Message-ID: <5354@columbia.edu>
Date: 27 Feb 88 02:18:05 GMT
References: <4209@june.cs.washington.edu> <1988Feb15.151522.5094@utzoo.uucp> <575@gtx.com> <1988Feb23.165949.4602@utzoo.uucp>
Sender: nobody@columbia.edu
Reply-To: travis@madonna.UUCP (Travis Lee Winfrey)
Organization: Columbia University CS Department
Lines: 30

In article <1988Feb23.165949.4602@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>[lost this reference]:
>> It seems to me that potential one-time pads are broadcast every day in
>> the form of newspapers, magazines, sports scores, lottery numbers,
>> etc.
>
>The trouble is that the bit stream you get from these sources is not
>*random*, and a random-number generator seeded from them isn't either.
>You don't get the unbreakability of the one-time pad unless your key
>stream is completely random, with no pattern whatsoever.  Making it
>English text, from whatever source, is about as useful as just sending
>your message "in clear"; methods for cryptanalyzing that sort of thing
>are old hat.  Seeding a garden-variety "random"-number generator is just
>as bad.

Well, you're talking only about English sources.  That's obvious; what about
the rest of his suggestions?

If the algorithm for computing lottery numbers is not random, then some of us
are missing out on making a lot of money, no?  The S book had a cute series of
examples analyzing some lottery numbers.  The tables are pretty short, though.

Sports scores show patterns, obviously, but what about subsets of the
statistics or league positions?  Do phone numbers show patterns, ignoring the
three digit prefix?

t
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