Anders Andersen submitted the
aspenpackage.
Version: 1.23 2026-01-21 License: lppl1.3c
Summary description: Simple crypto notation in LaTeX
Announcement text:
The Aspen package implements LaTeX commands closely related to what is often called *security protocol notation*, *standard protocol engineering notation*, *standard protocol notation*, or *protocol narrations*.
The name Aspen *can* be an abbreviation for *A Security Protocol Engineering Notation*, but another possible abbreviation is *Anderson-inspired Standard Protocol Engineering Notation*, in memory of the late Professor Ross J. Anderson [1], who has meant so much for the fields of computer security, distributed systems, and, in particular, security engineering.
Aspen is a notation for security protocols. Despite the many publications and textbooks found using notations for security protocols, the notations used are not consistent. The motivation for Aspen is to have an expressive and consistent notation that can be used in different settings where security protocols are presented. The Aspen package implements this notation for LaTeX.
Aspen is not a formalism, like BAN (Burrows–Abadi–Needham) logic, or a calculus for analysis of cryptographic protocols, like Spi calculus. For a more detailed analysis of cryptographic protocols, more expressive notations like BAN logic, Spi calculus, or something similar should be considered. Optionally, the Aspen LaTeX package also implements the BAN logic notation for LaTeX.
The Aspen package and its documentation are available from CTAN and from my private repository:
- https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/aspen
- https://www.pg12.org/dist/texmf/tex/latex/aspen/
Sincerely, Anders Andersen
[1] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/archive/rja14/
The package’s Catalogue entry can be viewed at https://ctan.org/pkg/aspen
The package’s files themselves can be inspected at https://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/aspen/
Thanks for the upload.
For the CTAN Team Vincent Goulet
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