Re^3: Short & Sweet Encryption?

To encode a high quality 4MP image, XOR requires a 17,000,000 bit (non-reusable) key. Other top ciphers require a 64 or 128 bit (reusable) key. XOR requires extra bits to compensate for its inherent insecurity.

If your key management system is secure enough to exchange and store a key as big as the data to encrypt, why don't you the system to protect the plaintext instead of the key?

Comment on Re^3: Short & Sweet Encryption?

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Re^4: Short & Sweet Encryption? by thor (Priest) on Jul 30, 2006 at 20:50 UTC
One Time Pads do have their application. For instance, the Russians used them to great effect for a while during the Cold War. Where they tripped up was they started to reuse keys. The One Time Pad assumes a random key. Once it starts repeating, it becomes a Vigenère Cipher, which has trivial to implement attacks against it. As far as why you would implement such a thing, I leave that to your imagination. I wasn't even saying that it was a particularly good choice for this application. I was just defending xor-based ciphers in general. thor `The only easy day was yesterday`	[reply]

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Re^4: Short & Sweet Encryption?
by thor (Priest) on Jul 30, 2006 at 20:50 UTC

Vigenère Cipher

As far as why you would implement such a thing, I leave that to your imagination. I wasn't even saying that it was a particularly good choice for this application. I was just defending xor-based ciphers in general.

thor

The only easy day was yesterday

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