Stefan Ciobaca, Stéphanie Delaune, and Steve Kremer. Computing knowledge in security protocols under convergent equational theories. Journal of Automated Reasoning, 48(2):219–262, Springer, February 2012.
The analysis of security protocols requires reasoning about the knowledge an attacker acquires by eavesdropping on network traffic. In formal approaches, the messages exchanged over the network are modeled by a term algebra equipped with an equational theory axiomatizing the properties of the cryptographic primitives (e.g. encryption, signature). In this context, two classical notions of knowledge, deducibility and indistinguishability, yield corresponding decision problems.
We propose a procedure for both problems under arbitrary convergent equational theories. Since the underlying problems are undecidable we cannot guarantee termination. Nevertheless, our procedure terminates on a wide range of equational theories. In particular, we obtain a new decidability result for a theory we encountered when studying electronic voting protocols. We also provide a prototype implementation.
@article{CDK-jar10,
abstract = {The analysis of security protocols requires reasoning
about the knowledge an attacker acquires by
eavesdropping on network traffic. In formal
approaches, the messages exchanged over the network
are modeled by a term algebra equipped with an
equational theory axiomatizing the properties of the
cryptographic primitives (e.g. encryption,
signature). In this context, two classical notions of
knowledge, deducibility and indistinguishability,
yield corresponding decision problems.\par We propose
a procedure for both problems under arbitrary
convergent equational theories. Since the underlying
problems are undecidable we cannot guarantee
termination. Nevertheless, our procedure terminates
on a wide range of equational theories. In
particular, we obtain a new decidability result for a
theory we encountered when studying electronic voting
protocols. We also provide a prototype
implementation.},
author = {Ciobaca, Stefan and
Delaune, St{\'e}phanie and Kremer, Steve},
OPTDOI = {10.1007/s10817-010-9197-7},
journal = {Journal of Automated Reasoning},
month = feb,
number = {2},
pages = {219-262},
publisher = {Springer},
title = {Computing knowledge in security protocols under
convergent equational theories},
volume = {48},
year = {2012},
nmonth = {2},
lsv-category = {jour},
wwwpublic = {public and ccsb},
}