Glossary¶
- Alice
“The Data Owner” Character - retains full control over the data encrypted for her and determines whom to share the data with.
- Bob
“The Data Recipient” Character - the data recipient that Alice intends to share data with.
- Capsule
Encrypted symmetric key (KEM) that is eventually re-encrypted.
- cFrag
A fragment of ciphertext that is a partial re-encryption produced by a kFrag operation on a Capsule.
- Character
A common term for any entity fulfilling a particular role in our cryptographic narrative.
- DEM
Data encapsulation mechanism - data encrypted with a symmetric key.
- Enrico
“The Encryptor” Character - a data source that encrypts data on behalf of Alice and produces a MessageKit.
- KEM
Key encapsulation mechanism - a symmetric key encrypted with an asymmetric key
- kFrag
A fragment of a Re-encryption Key.
- Label
A title for a classification/categorization of data according to how it is intended to be shared.
- MessageKit
The ciphertext (data encrypted with a symmetric key) and the Capsule (encrypted symmetric key) that are stored together.
- NU
The Legacy NuCypher token used by nodes for staking.
- NuNit
1 NU = 1018 NuNits.
- PKE
Public-key encryption.
- Porter
A web service that is the conduit between applications (platform-agnostic) and the PRE nodes on the Threshold network, that performs
nucypher
protocol operations on behalf of Alice and Bob.- PRE
Proxy re-encryption.
- Re-encryption Key
A key that facilitates the transformation of ciphertext from one encryption key to another.
- Stamp
The public key for a Character’s signing key pair.
- Treasure Map
The locations of Ursulas and associated encrypted kFrags for a policy. Bob will use the treasure map to determine which Ursulas to contact to re-encrypt the data Alice has shared with him.
- Umbral
NuCypher’s threshold proxy re-encryption scheme - it takes standard PRE and increases security and performance. See Umbral.
- Ursula
“The Proxy in PRE” Character - the PRE node on the Threshold Network that stands ready to re-encrypt data in exchange for payment in fees and token rewards; they enforce the access policy created by Alice.
- Operator
An account that is actively doing work in the network as an Ursula node. An Operator is bonded to, and performs work on behalf of, a Staking Provider.