I believe E stands for Eve stands for "Eves"dropper.
Ha, I never made that connection.
And who is the man in the middle?
Mallory, the malicious man in the middle.
Aw, you beat me to it. I had a meeting to run to and didn't respond. But adding to that there is a whole wiki (of course there is) about this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob
Michael.
Oh wait, my apologies, he's the man in the mirror.