security protocol notation

In cryptography, security (engineering) protocol notation, also known as protocol narrations and Alice & Bob notation, is a way of expressing a protocol of correspondence between entities of a dynamic system, such as a computer network. In the context of a formal model, it allows reasoning about the properties of such a system. The standard notation consists of a set of principals (traditionally named Alice, Bob, Charlie, and so on) who wish to communicate. They may have access to a server S, shared keys K, timestamps T, and can generate nonces N for authentication purposes. A simple example might be the following: This states that Alice intends a message for Bob consisting of a plaintext X encrypted under shared key KA,B.