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Engineering LibreTexts

1: One-Time Pad and Kerckhoffs' Principle

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You can’t learn about cryptography without meeting Alice, Bob, and Eve. This chapter is about the classic problem of private communication, in which Alice has a message that she wants to convey to Bob, while also keeping the contents of the message hidden from an eavesdropper 1 Eve. You’ll soon learn that there is more to cryptography than just private communication, but it is the logical place to start.


1 "Eavesdropper" refers to someone who secretly listens in on a conversation between others. The term originated as a reference to someone who literally hung from the eaves of a building in order to hear conversations happening inside.


This page titled 1: One-Time Pad and Kerckhoffs' Principle is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Mike Rosulek (Open Oregon State) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.

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