English

An Experiment in Ping-Pong Protocol Verification by Nondeterministic Pushdown Automata

Programming Languages 2018-04-02 v1 Formal Languages and Automata Theory Logic in Computer Science

Abstract

An experiment is described that confirms the security of a well-studied class of cryptographic protocols (Dolev-Yao intruder model) can be verified by two-way nondeterministic pushdown automata (2NPDA). A nondeterministic pushdown program checks whether the intersection of a regular language (the protocol to verify) and a given Dyck language containing all canceling words is empty. If it is not, an intruder can reveal secret messages sent between trusted users. The verification is guaranteed to terminate in cubic time at most on a 2NPDA-simulator. The interpretive approach used in this experiment simplifies the verification, by separating the nondeterministic pushdown logic and program control, and makes it more predictable. We describe the interpretive approach and the known transformational solutions, and show they share interesting features. Also noteworthy is how abstract results from automata theory can solve practical problems by programming language means.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1803.10327,
  title  = {An Experiment in Ping-Pong Protocol Verification by Nondeterministic Pushdown Automata},
  author = {Robert Glück},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.10327},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

In Proceedings MARS/VPT 2018, arXiv:1803.08668

R2 v1 2026-06-23T01:07:00.339Z