[ARC5] Dead Pigeons, Secret Messages, and Random Numbers

[J. Forster]

This is a follow-up to the news story of the long-dead carrier pigeon
found in a chimney in the UK with a 'secret'message attached.

News reports say that the message may never be decoded, because it was
encrypted using a one-time pad.

Now the question: In WWII, how did they generate the random data to make
one-time pads? And, how many distinct, different one-time pads were made?

If the message were now in machine readable form, it could be quickly
tested against a library of different one-time pads, but that would have
been next to impossible 70 years ago.

Best,

-John

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