at Wednesday, October 16, 2002 7:17 PM, David E. Weekly
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was seen to say:
> Naive question here, but what if you made multiple one time pads
> (XORing them all together to get your "true key") and then sent the
> different pads via different mechanisms (one via FedEx, one via
> secure courier, one via your best friend)? Unless *all* were
> compromised, the combined key would still be secure.
Pretty much, yes. at least one "real world" OTP system assumes you will
be using three CDRW disks; the three are xored (as you say) together,
the message sent, and after the keyfiles are exhaused (or the panic
button hit) all three disks are automatically wiped and overwritten
(several times) with random data. this isn't a new key (although it
could be used as such I suppose) but cleanup before the disks are
disposed of (the docs say to incinerate the disks, or in case of an
emergency, microwave them on high. There is usually a good excuse for a
microwave next to the machine, which is handy for the duty guy to heat
his lunch without leaving his desk :)
