Alice, Bob, and Annoying Eve

Alice, Bob, and Annoying Eve

Cryptography deals with secrets. How to keep them, and how to choose whom to share them with. If you ever look at an ELI5 (explain like I’m five) article for a cryptography topic, say a particular cipher, you are bound to come across certain people. I guarantee that you will read about Alice and Bob, who always seem to have confidential conversations. And then there’s Eve, a nosy friend who constantly wants to listen in on their classified communications.

Alice and Bob make sense, you think. A and B. Sure. But why Eve? Why not Claire or Casper or such? Well. I hope you’re sitting down for this. Eve has a bad habit of listening in. Of…“eavesdropping”. EVE-sdropping? Geddit, geddit, geddit?