Editing Chosen-plaintext attack (section)

==Introduction==
In a chosen-plaintext attack the [[Adversary (cryptography)|adversary]] can (possibly [[Adaptive algorithm|adaptively]]) ask for the ciphertexts of arbitrary plaintext messages. This is formalized by allowing the adversary to interact with an encryption [[Oracle machine|oracle]], viewed as a [[black box]]. The attacker’s goal is to reveal all or a part of the secret encryption key.

It may seem infeasible in practice that an attacker could obtain ciphertexts for given plaintexts. However, modern cryptography is implemented in software or hardware and is used for a diverse range of applications; for many cases, a chosen-plaintext attack is often very feasible (see also [[#In practice|In practice]]). Chosen-plaintext attacks become extremely important in the context of [[public key cryptography]] where the encryption key is public and so attackers can encrypt any plaintext they choose.