Editing Alice and Bob (section)

== History ==
Scientific papers about thought experiments with several participants often used letters to identify them: ''A'', ''B'', ''C'', etc.

The first mention of Alice and Bob in the context of cryptography was in [[Ron Rivest|Rivest]], [[Adi Shamir|Shamir]], and [[Leonard Adleman|Adleman]]'s 1978 article "A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems."<ref name=":0" /> They wrote, "For our scenarios we suppose that A and B (also known as Alice and Bob) are two users of a public-key cryptosystem".<ref name=":0" />{{rp|121}} Previous to this article, cryptographers typically referred to message senders and receivers as A and B, or other simple symbols. In fact, in the two previous articles by Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman, introducing the [[RSA (cryptosystem)|RSA cryptosystem]], there is no mention of Alice and Bob.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rivest |first1=Ron L. |author-link1=Ron Rivest |first2=Adi |last2=Shamir |author-link2=Adi Shamir |first3=Len |last3=Adleman |author-link3=Leonard Adleman |title=On Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems |location=Cambridge MA |publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology |date=April 1977}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rivest |first1=Ron L. |author-link1=Ron Rivest |first2=Adi |last2=Shamir |author-link2=Adi Shamir |first3=Len |last3=Adleman |author-link3=Leonard Adleman |title=Cryptographic Communications System and Method |id=4405829 |location=Cambridge MA |orig-year=1977 |date=September 20, 1983}}</ref> The choice of the first three names may have come from the film ''[[Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.networkworld.com/article/2318241/lan-wan-security-s-inseparable-couple.html |title=Security's inseparable couple: Alice & Bob |website=NetworkWorld |date=7 February 2005 |first=Bob |last=Brown}}</ref>

Within a few years, however, references to Alice and Bob in cryptological literature became a common [[trope (literature)|trope]]. Cryptographers would often begin their academic papers with reference to Alice and Bob. For instance, [[Michael O. Rabin|Michael Rabin]] began his 1981 paper, "Bob and Alice each have a secret, SB and SA, respectively, which they want to exchange."<ref>{{cite book |last=Rabin |first=Michael O. |author-link=Michael O. Rabin |title=How to exchange secrets with oblivious transfer |id=Technical Report TR-81 |publisher=Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard University |date=1981}}</ref> Early on, Alice and Bob were starting to appear in other domains, such as in [[Manuel Blum]]'s 1981 article, "Coin Flipping by Telephone: A Protocol for Solving Impossible Problems," which begins, "Alice and Bob want to flip a coin by telephone."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Blum |first=Manuel |author-link=Manuel Blum |title=Coin Flipping by Telephone a Protocol for Solving Impossible Problems |journal=ACM SIGACT News |volume=15 |issue=1 |date=November 10, 1981 |pages=23–27|doi=10.1145/1008908.1008911 |s2cid=19928725 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Although Alice and Bob were invented with no reference to their personality, authors soon began adding colorful descriptions. In 1983, Blum invented a backstory about a troubled relationship between Alice and Bob, writing, "Alice and Bob, recently divorced, mutually distrustful, still do business together. They live on opposite coasts, communicate mainly by telephone, and use their computers to transact business over the telephone."<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1145/357360.357368 |title=How to exchange (Secret) keys |year=1983 |last1=Blum |first1=Manuel |author-link=Manuel Blum |journal=ACM Transactions on Computer Systems |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=175–193|s2cid=16304470 |doi-access=free }}</ref> In 1984, John Gordon delivered his famous<ref>{{cite journal |title=Visualization of cryptographic protocols with GRACE |doi=10.1016/j.jvlc.2007.05.001 |journal=Journal of Visual Languages & Computing |volume=19 |issue=2 |date=April 2008 |pages=258–290 |first1=Giuseppe |last1=Cattaneoa |first2=Alfredo |last2=De Santisa |first3=Umberto |last3=Ferraro Petrillo}}</ref> "After Dinner Speech" about Alice and Bob, which he imagines to be the first "definitive biography of Alice and Bob."<ref>{{cite web |last=Gordon |first=John |title=The Alice and Bob After Dinner Speech |location=Zurich |date=April 1984 |url=http://downlode.org/Etext/alicebob.html}}</ref>

In addition to adding backstories and personalities to Alice and Bob, authors soon added other characters, with their own personalities. The first to be added was Eve, the "eavesdropper." Eve was invented in 1988 by Charles Bennet, Gilles Brassard, and Jean-Marc Robert, in their paper, "Privacy Amplification by Public Discussion."<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1137/0217014 |title=Privacy Amplification by Public Discussion |year=1988 |last1=Bennett |first1=Charles H. |last2=Brassard |first2=Gilles |last3=Robert |first3=Jean-Marc |journal=SIAM Journal on Computing |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=210–229|s2cid=5956782 }}</ref> In [[Bruce Schneier]]'s book ''Applied Cryptography'', other characters are listed.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schneier |first=Bruce |author-link=Bruce Schneier |title=Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms and Source Code in C |location=Hoboken, NJ |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |date=2015 |isbn=978-0-471-59756-8}}</ref>