  In 1949, Shannon proved the perfect secrecy of the Vernam cryptographic
system,also popularly known as the One-Time Pad (OTP). Since then, it has been
believed that the perfectly random and uncompressible OTP which is transmitted
needs to have a length equal to the message length for this result to be true.
In this paper, we prove that the length of the transmitted OTP which actually
contains useful information need not be compromised and could be less than the
message length without sacrificing perfect secrecy. We also provide a new
interpretation for the OTP encryption by treating the message bits as making
True/False statements about the pad, which we define as a private-object. We
introduce the paradigm of private-object cryptography where messages are
transmitted by verifying statements about a secret-object. We conclude by
suggesting the use of Formal Axiomatic Systems for investing N bits of secret.
