Cryptography or
cryptology; from
Greek kryptós, "hidden, secret"; and
graphein, "writing", or
-logia, "study", respectively is the practice and study of techniques for
secure communication in the presence of third parties called
adversaries. These adversaries are often referred to as Eve in cryptography, while the sender and recipient of messages are called Alice and Bob respectively. More generally, cryptography is about constructing and analyzing
protocols that prevent third parties or the public from reading private messages; various aspects in
information security such as data
confidentiality,
data integrity,
authentication, and
non-repudiation are central to modern cryptography. Modern cryptography exists at the intersection of the disciplines of
mathematics,
computer science, and
electrical engineering. Applications of cryptography include
ATM cards,
computer passwords, and
electronic commerce.