Aquinas Hobor

Oracle semantics for concurrent separation logic

We define (with machine-checked proofs in Coq) a modular operational semantics for Concurrent C minor--a language with shared memory, spawnable threads, and first-class locks. By modular we mean that one can reason about sequential control and data-flow knowing almost nothing about concurrency, and one can reason about concurrency knowing almost nothing about sequential control and data-flow constructs. We present a Concurrent Separation Logic with first-class locks and threads, and prove its soundness with respect to the operational semantics. Using our modularity principle, we proved the sequential C.S.L. rules (those inherited from sequential Separation Logic) simply by adapting Appel & Blazys machine-checked soundness proofs. Our Concurrent C minor operational semantics is designed to connect to Leroys optimizing (sequential) C minor compiler; we propose our modular semantics as a way to adapt Leroys compiler-correctness proofs to the concurrent setting. Thus we will obtain end-to-end proofs: the properties you prove in Concurrent Separation Logic will be true of the program that actually executes on the machine.

Making Smart Contracts Smarter

Cryptocurrencies record transactions in a decentralized data structure called a blockchain. Two of the most popular cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum, support the feature to encode rules or scripts for processing transactions. This feature has evolved to give practical shape to the ideas of smart contracts, or full-fledged programs that are run on blockchains. Recently, Ethereums smart contract system has seen steady adoption, supporting tens of thousands of contracts, holding millions dollars worth of virtual coins. In this paper, we investigate the security of running smart contracts based on Ethereum in an open distributed network like those of cryptocurrencies. We introduce several new security problems in which an adversary can manipulate smart contract execution to gain profit. These bugs suggest subtle gaps in the understanding of the distributed semantics of the underlying platform. As a refinement, we propose ways to enhance the operational semantics of Ethereum to make contracts less vulnerable. For developers writing contracts for the existing Ethereum system, we build a symbolic execution tool called Oyente to find potential security bugs. Among 19, 336 existing Ethereum contracts, Oyente flags 8, 833 of them as vulnerable, including the TheDAO bug which led to a 60 million US dollar loss in June 2016. We also discuss the severity of other attacks for several case studies which have source code available and confirm the attacks (which target only our accounts) in the main Ethereum network.

A Fresh Look at Separation Algebras and Share Accounting

Separation Algebras serve as models of Separation Logics; Share Accounting allows reasoning about concurrent-read/exclusive- write resources in Separation Logic. In designing a Concurrent Separation Logic and in mechanizing proofs of its soundness, we found previous axiomatizations of separation algebras and previous systems of share accounting to be useful but imperfect. We adjust the axioms of separation algebras; we demonstrate an operator calculus for constructing new separation algebras; we present a more powerful system of share accounting with a new, simple model; and we provide a reusable Coq development.

Barriers in concurrent separation logic

We develop and prove sound a concurrent separation logic for Pthreads-style barriers. Although Pthreads barriers are widely used in systems, and separation logic is widely used for verification, there has not been any effort to combine the two. Unlike locks and critical sections, Pthreads barriers enable simultaneous resource redistribution between multiple threads and are inherently stateful, leading to significant complications in the design of the logic and its soundness proof. We show how our logic can be applied to a specific example program in a modular way. Our proofs are machine-checked in Coq.

A Concurrent Perspective on Smart Contracts

In this paper, we explore remarkable similarities between multi-transactional behaviors of smart contracts in cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and classical problems of shared-memory concurrency. We examine two real-world examples from the Ethereum blockchain and analyzing how they are vulnerable to bugs that are closely reminiscent to those that often occur in traditional concurrent programs. We then elaborate on the relation between observable contract behaviors and well-studied concurrency topics, such as atomicity, interference, synchronization, and resource ownership. The described contracts-as-concurrent-objects analogy provides deeper understanding of potential threats for smart contracts, indicate better engineering practices, and enable applications of existing state-of-the-art formal verification techniques.

Decision Procedures over Sophisticated Fractional Permissions

Fractional permissions enable sophisticated management of resource accesses in both sequential and concurrent programs. Entailment checkers for formulae that contain fractional permissions must be able to reason about said permissions to verify the entailments. We show how entailment checkers for separation logic with fractional permissions can extract equation systems over fractional shares. We develop a set decision procedures over equations drawn from the sophisticated boolean binary tree fractional permission model developed by Dockins et al.[4]. We prove that our procedures are sound and complete and discuss their computational complexity. We explain our implementation and provide benchmarks to help understand its performance in practice. We detail how our implementation has been integrated into the HIP/SLEEK verification toolset. We have machine-checked proofs in Coq.

Barriers in Concurrent Separation Logic: Now With Tool Support!

We develop and prove sound a concurrent separation logic for Pthreads-style barriers. Although Pthreads barriers are widely used in systems, and separation logic is widely used for verification, there has not been any effort to combine the two. Unlike locks and critical sections, Pthreads barriers enable simultaneous resource redistribution between multiple threads and are inherently stateful, leading to significant complications in the design of the logic and its soundness proof. We show how our logic can be applied to a specific example program in a modular way. Our proofs are machine-checked in Coq. We showcase a program verification toolset that automatically applies the logic rules and discharges the associated proof obligations.

A Resource-Based Logic for Termination and Non-termination Proofs

We propose a unified logical framework for specifying and proving both termination and non-termination of various programs. Our framework is based on a resource logic which captures both upper and lower bounds on resources used by the programs. By an abstraction, we evolve this resource logic for execution length into a temporal logic with three predicates to reason about termination, non-termination or unknown. We introduce a new logical entailment system for temporal constraints and show how Hoare logic can be seamlessly used to prove termination and non-termination in our unified framework. Though this paper’s focus is on the formal foundations for a new unified framework, we also report on the usability and practicality of our approach by specifying and verifying both termination and non-termination properties for about 300 programs, collected from a variety of sources. This adds a modest 5-10% verification overhead when compared to underlying partial-correctness verification system.

Teaching experience: logic and formal methods with coq

During the past three years we have been integrating mechanized theorem proving into a traditional introductory course on formal methods. We explain our goals for adding mechanized provers to the course, and illustrate how we have integrated the provers into our syllabus to meet those goals. We also document some of the teaching materials we have developed for the course to date, and what our experiences have been like.

Multimodal Separation Logic for Reasoning About Operational Semantics

We show how to reason, in the proof assistant Coq, about realistic programming languages using a combination of separation logic and heterogeneous multimodal logic. A heterogeneous multimodal logic is a logic with several modal operators that are not required to satisfy the same frame conditions. The result is a powerful and elegant system for reasoning about programming languages and their semantics. The techniques are quite general and can be adopted to a wide variety of settings.