Interactive and Probabilistic Proof of Mobile Code Safety

Abstract

This paper proposes a new proof-based approach to safe evolution of distributed software systems. Specifically, it extends the simple certification mechanism of proof-carrying code (PCC) to make it interactive and probabilistic, thereby devising interactive proof-carrying code (iPCC). With iPCC, a code consumer is convinced, with overwhelming probability, of the existence and validity of a safety proof of a transmitted code through interaction with a code producer. The iPCC mechanism theoretically solves the problem of proof explosion with PCC and can be used to efficiently prove a greater variety of safety properties that may require longer proofs. Technically, the class (PSPACE) of safety properties that are efficiently provable by iPCC is larger than the class (NP) efficiently provable by PCC. To illustrate the power of iPCC, this paper demonstrates that the verification of certain basic safety properties of typical machine instruction codes needs co-NP-complete computation, and shows how these safety properties can be efficiently verified by the iPCC mechanism.