Bits of py

The first challenge question for my cryptography course with  udacity.com  was to decrypt two intercepted messages encoded using a  One Time Pad . The messages were encrypted using the same key, which is a big operator error for sending secure messages with a one time pad. Despite having considerable computer resources available it took me a full afternoon before I obtained the full key. I ended up using a very tedious manual process which pretty much involved assuming common words would present. I ended up trying a few hundred words before finding an invalid assumption I'd made. Back on the right track I tried words surrounded by spaces starting at all possible locations. By assuming a word appears in a message you get a section of bits that could potentially be the key aligned with that word. Using this key on the other message usually gives garbage - except for the few cases where it output something resembling English, meaning you "might" have guessed the right w