title: Cryptanalysis: XOR of two plaintext files
body: <p>I have a file which contains the result of two XORed plaintext files. How do I attack this file in order to decrypt either of the plaintext files? I have searched quite a bit, but could not find any answers. Thanks!</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT:</strong></p>
  
  <p>Well, I also have the two ciphertexts which i XORed to get the XOR of the two plaintexts. The reason I ask this question, is because, according to Bruce Schneier, pg. 198, Applied Cryptography, 1996 "...she can XOR them together and get two plaintext messages XORed with each other. This is easy to break, and then she can XOR one of the plaintexts with the ciphertext to get the keystream." (This is in relation to a simple stream cipher) But beyond that he provided no explanation. Which is why I asked here. Forgive my ignorance.</p>
  
  <p>Also, the algorithm used is a simple one, and a symmetric key is used whose length is 3.</p>
  
  <p><strong>FURTHER EDIT:</strong></p>
  
  <p>I forgot to add: Im assuming that a simple stream cipher was used for encryption.</p>