Placeholder names are commonly used in cryptography to indicate the participants in a conversation, without resorting to terminology such as "Party A," "eavesdropper," and "malicious attacker."
The most commonly used names are:
- Alice
and
Bob
, two parties who want to send messages to each other, occasionally joined by
Carol
, a third participant
- Eve
, a passive attacker who is eavesdropping on Alice and Bob's conversation
- Mallory
, an active attacker ("man-in-the-middle") who is able to modify their conversation and replay old messages
