Re: OK - this is how a one time pad works (10:05)

Paul Powell said:

> The key must be properly randomly generated.

In addition it must contain adequate entropy. A perfectly random sequence of 0's and 1's would be adequate for perfectly encrypting a sequence of coin flips, but not most messages (if applied in a simplistic manner). The cypher text "IEMLO MVN" (coded with shifts of 0's and 1's) is quite easy to decode because there is insufficient entropy in the key to 'hide' the original message!