[HN Gopher] History of Alice and Bob
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       History of Alice and Bob
        
       Author : susam
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2023-12-26 21:08 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (cryptocouple.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (cryptocouple.com)
        
       | oaktowner wrote:
       | Kind of fun reading that and not only hearing about Diffie and
       | Hellman, but also learning where the initials RSA came from!
        
         | gerdesj wrote:
         | Its not this: https://www.thersa.org/
        
         | defrost wrote:
         | Nor from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Cocks
        
       | yodon wrote:
       | I can't tell. Is this in part a veiled (or not so veiled)
       | criticism of the RSA authors for introducing a female name into
       | the literature, in an explicitly equal manner (the "A" and "B"
       | characters communicate as equals), at a time when most business
       | and technical writing defaulted to "he" for all characters? If
       | so, as someone who saw the chauvinistic era in which the first of
       | the cited papers was written, I would encourage these modern
       | authors to one day recognize that expanding rights and expanding
       | acceptance in society is a long slow process. The fact that you
       | can see more you think those who came before you should have done
       | does not mean those things you want today would have been
       | possible then, or possible today without the incremental progress
       | delivered by earlier agents of change.
        
         | bzbz wrote:
         | What part of it seems like a criticism to you?
        
         | shermantanktop wrote:
         | From the article: "In the history of cryptology, women tend to
         | be either systematically excluded or reduced to objects. The
         | absence of women is both a reflection of the bias of society
         | and historians, and a gap in the employment of women in
         | computing fields."
         | 
         | What are you are seeing in the article that suggests a
         | "criticism" of the introduction of Alice?
        
       | kshay wrote:
       | I always assumed the 1969 movie "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" had
       | something to do with the use of these names...
       | 
       | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064100
        
         | shermantanktop wrote:
         | If it were "Bob and Alice and Mallory and Eve" you'd have a
         | solid case.
        
       | pklausler wrote:
       | Cormac McCarthy fans should recognize Alicia and Bobby.
        
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       (page generated 2023-12-26 23:00 UTC)