devine@vianet.UUCP (Bob Devine) (12/18/86)
Something to reflect upon, when thinking about decrypting a message using a key with a very large range, is the large number of possible decryptions that may result. Obviously, most of the decryptions when using a random key will be garbage. However, what's intriguing is the thought that some of the random keys will produce random interesting messages. For comparison, what were the odds in the old puzzle about 100 monkees coming up with Shakespearean plays after hammering randomly on typewriters for a million years? Bob Devine [ encrypting my name produces 13013...:-)]
bem@mtund.UUCP (Bruce McNair) (12/19/86)
> > Something to reflect upon, when thinking about decrypting a message > using a key with a very large range, is the large number of possible > decryptions that may result. Obviously, most of the decryptions > when using a random key will be garbage. However, what's intriguing > is the thought that some of the random keys will produce random > interesting messages. > Bob Devine > [ encrypting my name produces 13013...:-)] The whole strength of the "one time pad" cryptosystem (the only publically known, provably secure against all attacks cryptosystem) is based on that fact - a cipher can be decrypted into any of 2**n plaintexts (for an n bit message) and all are equally plausible plaintexts, given the cipher.