Are one-time pads really unbreakable?
Yes. But only if used properly. A one-time pad must be truly random data and must be kept secure in order to be unbreakable. Consider if the one-time pad is used to encode the word “otter.” If an attacker tries to brute force “guess” the contents of the pad, the message will “decrypt” into every possible combination of 6 characters (e.g.: “lemur.” “badger” etc..) Since the pad is truly random there are no statistical methods that the attacker can hope to use to infer which combination is correct.
