dopeIN® safety philosophy, Alice, Bob, Cryptography

Safety philosophy

Alice & Bob - metasyntactic variables in cryptography

In cryptography, Alice & Bob are fictional characters. They have been used for decades to vividly explain security processes. Eve and Mallory are also used.

Alice

Bob

Eve

Mallory

Each character has their own role. Alice and Bob want to communicate safely. Eve wants to eavesdrop on them. Mallory goes one step further. She tries to infiltrate or even manipulate the communication between Alice and Bob.

This analogy still helps to illustrate complex security concepts today.

"Alice & Bob love ice cream - but not when Mallory tampers with it"

The story behind secure authentication - and how dopeIN® helps

Once upon a time... a pair of lovers called Alice & Bob.

They wanted to send each other secret love messages - completely private, intended for their ears only.

But there was a problem. To be more precise: two.

Eve, the curious eavesdropper.
Mallory, the tricky deceiver.

Eve was constantly trying to listen in. Mallory went even further: she wanted to interfere in the news, pretending to be Bob - or worse - Alice. Chaos was inevitable.

The first attempt: classic, but uncertain

Alice and Bob agreed on a secret password.
Bob stored it securely - as a hash value*, i.e. in secret form.
Alice sent the password with every contact - and Bob checked it against his hash.

(*A hash value is a kind of "digital fingerprint" of the password that cannot be recalculated. Even if someone steals the hash value, they cannot reconstruct the original password).

Sounds safe? It wasn't.

Eve was able to eavesdrop on the password and act as Alice herself.
Mallory was able to pretend to be Bob and manipulate Alice.
Bob checked Alice, but Alice never knew if she was really talking to Bob.

The relationship was digitally on the brink.

This is where dopeIN® comes into play and changes the rules within the game... and suddenly everything becomes individual, clever and safer.

Alice and Bob no longer wanted to be vulnerable.
They wanted a process that was as unique as their relationship.
They decided to use dopeIN®.

dopeIN® changes the rules of the game:

The shared password is never transmitted directly.
Both sides must authenticate each other.
Registration is done via dynamic tasks that only Alice & Bob understand.
Every answer is unique - and different the next time.

How it works - using the example of an ice cream order

Bob sets a task: "How much does your order of 2 chocolate, 3 vanilla, 5 strawberry, 8 stracciatella and 2 coconut ice cream scoops cost?"

Only Alice knows the secret rule: she counts the scoops of vanilla ice cream and adds this number to her secret password.

Vanilla = 3
Secret password = 1234
Answer: 1237

Bob, on the other hand, knows how to check the answer - without knowing the actual password.
He subtracts the number of scoops of vanilla ice cream from the answer → 1237 – 3 = 1234
It then compares the hash value with its stored – and voilà: a sure happy ending!

What characterises dopeIN®!