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Using Process Algebra to Design Better Protocols

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The Role and Importance of Mathematics in Innovation

Part of the book series: Mathematics for Industry ((MFI,volume 25))

Abstract

Protocol design, development and standardisation still follow the lines of rough consensus and running code. This approach yields fast and impressive results in a sense that protocols are actually implemented and shipped, but comes at a price: protocol specifications, which are mainly written in natural languages without presenting a formal specification , are (excessively) long, ambiguous, underspecified and erroneous. These shortcomings are neither new nor surprising, and well documented. It is the purpose of this paper to provide further evidence that formal methods in general and process algebras in particular can overcome these problems. They provide powerful tools that help to analyse and evaluate protocols, already during the design phase. To illustrate this claim, I report how a combination of pen-and-paper analysis, model checking and interactive theorem proving has helped to perform a formal analysis of the Ad hoc On-Demand Vector (AODV) routing protocol.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3600221.

  2. 2.

    http://www.mikrotik.com/.

  3. 3.

    This paper won the 2011 SIGCOMM Test-of-Time Award.

  4. 4.

    A list of IETF’s successes and failures can be found at http://trac.tools.ietf.org/misc/outcomes/.

  5. 5.

    In case \(\varphi \) contains free variables, values to these variables are chosen nondeterministically in a way that satisfies \(\varphi \), if possible.

  6. 6.

    The unicast is unsuccessful if the destination dest is out of transmission range of the sender.

  7. 7.

    As common, text placed between /* and */ are comments and not part of AWN.

  8. 8.

    Reference [4] proves loop freedom for four variants of AODV , in average only one invariant needed major changes; and a few others needed systematic adaptions, such as changes of data types.

  9. 9.

    SMC-Uppaal, the Statistical extension of Uppaal (release 4.1.11) [7] accepts the same input as standard Uppaal; the creation of a new model was not required.

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks goes to all collaborators who contributed to the AODV case study; in particular Timothy Bourke, Ansgar Fehnker, Robert J. van Glabbeek, Annabelle McIver, Marius Portmann, and Wee Lum Tan. Further I would like to thank Robert J. van Glabbeek again for valuable comments on this paper. NICTA is funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Communications and the Australian Research Council through the ICT Centre of Excellence Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NICTA and UNSW, Locked Bag 6016, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, 1466, Australia

    Peter Höfner

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  1. Peter Höfner
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Correspondence to Peter Höfner .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Informatics and Statistics, CSIRO Mathematics Informatics and Statistics, Canberra, Aust Capital Terr, Australia

    Bob Anderssen

  2. Mathematics & Statistics Dept, La Trobe Univ Mathematics & Statistics Dept, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia

    Philip Broadbridge

  3. Inst of Math for Industry, Kyushu University Inst of Math for Industry, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan

    Yasuhide Fukumoto

  4. Inst of Math for Industry, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Naoyuki Kamiyama

  5. Inst of Math for Industry, Kyushu University Inst of Math for Industry, Fukuoka, Japan

    Yoshihiro Mizoguchi

  6. AG Mathematical Geometry Processing, Freie Univ Berlin AG Mathematical Geometry Processing, Berlin, Germany

    Konrad Polthier

  7. Inst of Math for Industry, Kyushu University Inst of Math for Industry, Fukuoka, Japan

    Osamu Saeki

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Höfner, P. (2017). Using Process Algebra to Design Better Protocols. In: Anderssen, B., et al. The Role and Importance of Mathematics in Innovation. Mathematics for Industry, vol 25. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0962-4_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0962-4_8

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