XOR is a common cryptographic tool. 10110001 XOR 00111010 is?

10111100 does not result from a correct bitwise XOR of the two operands; it reflects an arithmetic or bit-position error.

11011000 is incorrect and would require the first bit pair to produce 1, but 1 XOR 0 = 1 only in the first position - the remaining bits do not match this pattern.

10011101 is incorrect; it diverges from the correct result at multiple bit positions, indicating a miscalculation of the XOR operation.

Performing XOR bit by bit: 1^0=1, 0^0=0, 1^1=0, 1^1=0, 0^1=1, 0^0=0, 0^1=1, 1^0=1, yielding 10001011. XOR is foundational in symmetric encryption and stream ciphers because XORing with the same key twice recovers the original plaintext. This property makes it both simple and useful in cryptographic operations.