One-time Pad - True Randomness Requirements

True Randomness Requirements

In discussing the one-time pad, two notions of security have to be kept distinct. The first is the perfect secrecy of the one-time pad system as proved by Shannon (Shannon security). The second is the security offered by state-of-the-art ciphers (e.g. AES) designed with principles learned in the long history of code breaking and subjected to extensive testing in a standardization process, either in public or by a top notch security service (empirical security). The former is mathematically proven, subject to the practical availability of random numbers. The latter is unproven but relied upon by most governments to protect their most vital secrets (insofar as publicly known thus far).