1.4. Some Cryptographic Terms

In cryptology, there are different models of attacks or attackers.

1.4.1. Models of Attacks

So far we have assumed that an adversary can only read messages during transmission over a channel. Such an adversary is called a passive adversary. An active adversary, on the other hand, can mutilate or delete messages during transmission and/or generate false messages. An attack mounted by an active (resp.[3] a passive) adversary is called an active (resp. a passive) attack. In this book, we will mostly concentrate on passive attacks.

[3] Throughout the book, resp. stands for respectively.

1.4.2. Models of Passive Attacks

A two-party communication involves transmission of ciphertext messages over a communication channel. ...

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