Abstract
Cryptographic protocols are sequences of message exchanges, usually involving encryption, intended to establish secure communication over insecure networks. Whether they actually do so is a notoriously subtle question. This paper describes a proof procedure that automatically proves desired properties of cryptographic protocols, using a HOL formalization of a “belief logic” extending that of Gong, Needham, and Yahalom [9], or precisely identifies where these proof attempts fail. This proof procedure is not a full decision procedure for the belief logic, but it proves all theorems that have been of interest. This proof procedure has quickly shown potential deficiencies in published protocols, and is a significant application for HOL90 and SML.
The author wishes to thank Grace Hammonds, Randly Lichota, Shiu-Kai Chin, and Jack Wool for their assistance. This work was supported by Air Force Materiel Command’s Electronic Systems Center/Software Center (ESC/AXS), Hanscom AFB, through the Portable, Reusable, Integrated Software Modules (PRISM) contract.
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Brackin, S.H. (1996). Deciding cryptographic protocol adequacy with HOL: The implementation. In: Goos, G., Hartmanis, J., van Leeuwen, J., von Wright, J., Grundy, J., Harrison, J. (eds) Theorem Proving in Higher Order Logics. TPHOLs 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1125. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0105397
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0105397
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