Poor man's encrypted data

[Ro Nagey]

Here's an idea given your criteria: make a 'one-time' pad stack. 
Although I know you know how to make one, it's interesting enough to 
discuss here:

Grossly simplified:
1. You generate a text file of random letters. The text file is of 
arbitrary length. You give a copy of the text file to Alice and Bob. 
They also are given a stack.
2. Alice sends a message to Bob. Before it's sent, the stack translates 
the message based on a section of the random text. It might be 
something as simple as using the number of chars and the short date [or 
the seconds] to generate an offset to the random text file.
3. The message is transposed and sent to Bob. The short date is sent in 
the clear.
4. Bob uses the short date and the number of chars to go out to the 
text file [via your stack] and the message is decrypted.
5. The letters used from the text file are both deleted from both Bob's 
and Alice's files.

Now, your only concerns are that the text file of random letters isn't 
something that could be easily discovered. Stick it somewhere and name 
it something like, I dunno, "ThisIsNotAOneTimePad.txt" or something so 
no one gets suspicious. ;)

And, if you want it to look even more innocuous, send it as an 
attachment - embed the message in a stack as you suggested. The stack 
could be of anything. It's just a wrapper for the message - which is 
accessed via the Encrypt/Decrypt stack.

There are any number of [more secure] variations of this. But, at 
least, it means that Charles can't look at the encrypted messages and 
decrypt them easily - as every message uses a new random arrangement of 
letters and punctuation.

Ro

On Saturday, April 5, 2003, at 08:42 AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:

>
> In lieu of a formal definition, for me it means at a minimum not clear 
> text,
> but also goes further to be not merely binhexed or other common 
> algorithm.