Formal Verification of Blockchain Byzantine Fault Tolerance

Tholoniat, Pierre; Gramoli, Vincent

doi:10.48550/arxiv.1909.07453

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…In [90] a computational model which provide high level abstraction developed for consensus algorithm based on Heard-Of-model (HO model) which provide complete verification of consensus protocols for asynchronous system. Formal verification of BFT is performed in [91] using ByMC model checker. The quorum based BFT consensus protocol Steller is modeled in [92].…”

Section: Formal Approach In Consensus Protocolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction of Formal Methods in Blockchain Consensus Mechanism and Its Associated Protocols

2022

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As the size of data is increasing exponentially, its security is a major concern, emerging technology like blockchain is used to provide security. Since the inception of blockchain, it has been adopted by researchers and industry, however, it gained enormous attention after cryptocurrency. It can be defined as a means of storing information in such a way that modification and hacking the system is difficult or impossible. A blockchain is a decentralized ledger that is digital and public, consisting of records of transactions called blocks. A consensus technology assures that all nodes agree on a unique sequence for appending blocks. A comprehensive examination of these algorithms will aid in understanding how and why each blockchain operates in the manner that it does. In this study, we addressed extensively used consensus techniques in the blockchain and the importance of consensus protocol in blockchain technology. The underlying consensus algorithm is a critical component of every blockchain system which determine the performance and security of the system. Ensuring the correctness of consensus protocols is uttermost important to create trust in the blockchain-based systems and formal methods are the way to create that trust and develop correct and verified systems. Formal modeling is a method of writing a system mathematically and examining the correctness and verifying the developed system. This study analyzed the importance of consensus mechanisms and how formal methods are helping to develop a correct blockchain-based system. This paper is a rigorous study on the current scenario of the application of formal methods in the consensus mechanism of blockchain for their verification.

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Section: Formal Approach In Consensus Protocolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction of Formal Methods in Blockchain Consensus Mechanism and Its Associated Protocols

2022

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“…There is also work model checking other BFT consensus protocols. For example, Tholoniat and Gramoli [37] have used ByMC [23] to model check RedBelly's consensus algorithm [15]; ByMC is a model checker designed to mitigate the state space blowup for algorithms in which processes wait for a threshold of messages. While basic HotStuff may fit this structure, chained HotStuff does not.…”

Section: Other Bft Consensus Protocolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many published consensus algorithms, including some with manual correctness proofs, have been shown to be incorrect [12,37]. Therefore, precise, machinechecked formal verification is essential, particularly for new algorithms being adopted in practice.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Formal Verification of HotStuff-based Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus in Agda: Extended Version

Carr¹,

Moir²,

Miraldo³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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LibraBFT is a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus protocol based on HotStuff. We present an abstract model of the protocol underlying HotStuff / LibraBFT, and formal, machine-checked proofs of their core correctness (safety) property and an extended condition that enables non-participating parties to verify committed results. (Liveness properties would be proved for specific implementations, not for the abstract model presented in this paper.) A key contribution is precisely defining assumptions about the behavior of honest peers, in an abstract way, independent of any particular implementation. Therefore, our work is an important step towards proving correctness of an entire class of concrete implementations, without repeating the hard work of proving correctness of the underlying protocol. The abstract proofs are for a single configuration (epoch); extending these proofs across configuration changes is future work. Our models and proofs are expressed in Agda, and are available in open source.⋆ This is an extended version of a conference paper with the same title in the proceedings of the 14th NASA Formal Methods Symposium (NFM 2022). It contains additional details and proof overviews.

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“…It is notoriously difficult to build distributed systems that are correct, especially if byzantine faults [21] may occur, that is, some participants may actively and maliciously deviate from the protocol. Many published consensus algorithms-including some with manual correctness proofs-have been shown to be incorrect [9,33], meaning that two honest participants can be convinced to accept conflicting decisions, even if all assumptions are satisfied. Therefore, precise, machine-checked formal verification is essential, particularly for new protocols that are being adopted in practice.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An approach to translating Haskell programs to Agda and reasoning about them

Carr¹,

Jenkins²,

Moir³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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We are using the Agda programming language and proof assistant to formally verify the correctness of a Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus implementation based on HotStuff / LibraBFT. The Agda implementation is a translation of our Haskell implementation based on LibraBFT. This paper focuses on one aspect of this work. We have developed a library that enables the translated Agda implementation to closely mirror the Haskell code on which it is based. This makes it easier and more efficient to review the translation for accuracy, and to maintain the translated Agda code when the Haskell code changes, thereby reducing the risk of translation errors. We also explain how we capture the semantics of the syntactic features provided by our library, thus enabling formal reasoning about programs that use them; details of how we reason about the resulting Agda implementation will be presented in a future paper. The library that we present is independent of our particular verification project, and is available, open-source, for others to use and extend.

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Formal Verification of Blockchain Byzantine Fault Tolerance

Cited by 7 publications

References 32 publications

Introduction of Formal Methods in Blockchain Consensus Mechanism and Its Associated Protocols

Introduction of Formal Methods in Blockchain Consensus Mechanism and Its Associated Protocols

Towards Formal Verification of HotStuff-based Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus in Agda: Extended Version

An approach to translating Haskell programs to Agda and reasoning about them

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