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Playing card cryptosystems




> Also I did hear tell that Bruce Schneier was working on a crypto
> algorithm which was designed to work with playing cards, for a book
> which Neal Stephenson is writing.  Presumably painful to use, but
> maybe good plausible deniability, all that you need is a pack of
> cards.

Not even that in fact, there are methods, and I can confirm they work 
because I can do it myself, that allow one to memorize the order of a 
pack of playing cards, some people can even do it with up to 8 packs, 
although this requires a more complicated method. So while encryption 
requires one to have the cards ready (about 8 good riffle shuffles 
will restore a high degree of randomness to a deck) you can keep the 
pad for short messages in your head. But one can do the same with one 
time pads that use other plaintexts as the pad.

 

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