One time pad: why is it useless in practice? The symmetric cryptosystem one-time pad (OTP) seems to be very beautiful since it is perfectly secret according to Shannon. Many books, however, point out the main drawback: one must create a secret key the same length as the plaintext. For this reason, the concept of perfect secrecy has these days been abandoned, and we prefer other cryptosystems. 

Now, for example, suppose I want to encode my text message with the ASCII scheme, and moreover suppose that this plaintext is 10 gigabytes long, therefore (using an OTP) the key must be the same length, 10 gigabytes. I think, however, this is a ''sustainable price'' because I'm sure that the ciphertext can't be attacked.

Practically, I don't understand why having such long keys with an OTP is a big disadvantage if we reach "the dream"-- namely, perfect secrecy. Nowadays the storage of information is very easy, so what is the real problem? I can, for example, share the "long key" in person.
Actually, the problem with OTP isn't the storage of the pad (although secure erasure of the parts of the pad you used is trickier than it looks), and it isn't the pad generation (although, again, that's trickier than it looks), but the secure transport.

After all, it's not enough for you (Alice) to have the secure pad, you also have to give a copy to the guy (Bob) you're sending the message to, and you need to send it in a way that's secure.

That's the real reason OTP's aren't used that often; OTP's would require meeting with the other side directly, or alternatively using a trusted courier; we rarely want to put up with the expense with either, especially since there are cheaper alternatives available.