Process calculus

Summary

In computer science, the process calculi (or process algebras) are a diverse family of related approaches for formally modelling concurrent systems. Process calculi provide a tool for the high-level description of interactions, communications, and synchronizations between a collection of independent agents or processes. They also provide algebraic laws that allow process descriptions to be manipulated and analyzed, and permit formal reasoning about equivalences between processes (e.g., using bisimulation). Leading examples of process calculi include CSP, CCS, ACP, and LOTOS. More recent additions to the family include the π-calculus, the ambient calculus, PEPA, the fusion calculus and the join-calculus. Essential features While the variety of existing process calculi is very large (including variants that incorporate stochastic behaviour, timing information, and specializations for studying molecular interactions), there are several features that all process calculi have

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_calculus

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The course introduces the foundations on which programs and programming languages are built. It introduces syntax, types and semantics as building blocks that together define the properties of a program part or a language. Students will learn how to apply these concepts in their reasoning.

With the advent of multiprocessors, it becomes crucial to master the underlying algorithmics of concurrency. The objective of this course is to study the foundations of concurrent algorithms and in particular the techniques that enable the construction of robust such algorithms.

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Modeling Consensus in a Process Calculus

Rachele Fuzzati, Massimo Merro

We give a process calculus model that formalizes a well known algorithm (introduced by Chandra and Toueg) solving consensus in the presence of a particular class of failure detectors (Diamond S); we use our model to formally prove that the algorithm satisfies its specification.

2003

Modeling Consensus in a Process Calculus

Rachele Fuzzati, Massimo Merro

We give a process calculus model that formalizes a well-known algorithm (introduced by Chandra and Toueg) solving consensus in the presence of a particular class of failure detectors; we use our model to formally prove that the algorithm satisfies its specification.

2003

Theory and tool support for the formal verification of cryptographic protocols

Sébastien Briais

Cryptographic protocols are an essential component of network communications. Despite their relatively small size compared to other distributed algorithms, they are known to be error-prone. This is due to the obligation to behave robustly in the context of unknown hostile attackers who might want to act against the security objectives of the jointly interacting entities. The need for techniques to verify the correctness of cryptographic protocols has stimulated the development of new frameworks and tools during the last decades. Among the various models is the spi calculus: a process calculus which is an extension of the pi calculus that incorporates cryptographic primitives. Process calculi such as the spi calculus offer the possibility to describe in a precise and concise way distributed algorithms such as cryptographic protocols. Moreover, spi calculus offers an elegant way to formalise some security properties of cryptographic protocols via behavioural equivalences. At the time this thesis began, this approach lacked tool support. Inspired by the situation in the pi calculus, we propose a new notion of behavioural equivalence for the spi calculus that is close to an algorithm. Besides, we propose a "coq" formalisation of our results that not only validates our theoretical developments but also will eventually be the basis of a certified tool that would automate equivalence checking of spi calculus terms. To complete the toolchain, we propose a formal semantics for an informal notation to describe cryptographic protocols, so called protocol narrations. We give a rigorous procedure to translate protocol narrations into spi calculus terms; this constitutes the foundations of our automatic translation tool "spyer".

EPFL2008