Alice and Bob
Alice and Bob, also just A and B, are the standard example users in writing on cryptography and coding theory.
The most familiar names in network security are neither vendors nor geeks: Try Alice and Bob.[1]
Carol and Dave often join them for protocols that require more than two players. Bruce Schneier extends these [2] with two kinds of attacker:
- Eve the Eavesdropper, using passive attacks
- Mallory the Malicious, using active attacks
and several other types of player required in various protocols:
- Victor the Verifier
- Peggy the Prover
- Trent the Trusted third party
- Walter the Warden, who watches over A and B in some protocols
His extensions seem to be in the process of becoming standard as well.
It is also moderately common to add additional characters as needed for a particular protocol. For example, in discussing a e-commerce system, one might need Matlida the Merchant and Ivan the Issuer of credentials.
History
Alice and Bob were introduced in the original paper [3] on the RSA algorithm for public key cryptography.
Rivest ... says he came up with Alice and Bob to be able to use "A" and "B" for notation, and that by having one male and one female, the pronouns "he" and "she" could be used in descriptions. Rivest says it is possible that Alice came to mind because he is something of an Alice in Wonderland buff.Cite error: Closing
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The similar name of the film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and subsequent TV show appears to be just a coincidence.
References
- ↑ "Security's inseparable couple", Network World, Feb 2005
- ↑ Schneier, Bruce (2nd edition, 1996,), Applied Cryptography, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-11709-9 page 23
- ↑ Rivest, Shamir & Adleman (1978), A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems