| | |
Summary: Security Protocols and their Properties #
Martn Abadi
Bell Labs Research
Lucent Technologies
Abstract. Specifications for security protocols range from informal
narrations of message flows to formal assertions of protocol properties.
This paper discusses those specifications, emphasizing authenticity and
secrecy properties. It also suggests some gaps and some opportunities
for further work. Some of them pertain to the traditional core of the
field; others appear when we examine the context in which protocols
operate.
1 Introduction
The method of ``security by obscurity'' dictates that potential attackers to a system
should be kept from knowing not only passwords and cryptographic keys but also basic
information about how the system works, such as the specifications of cryptographic
algorithms, communication protocols, and access control mechanisms. It has long been
argued that ``security by obscurity'' is usually inferior to open design [64, 34]. Of course,
the value of writing and publishing specifications is greater when the specifications are
clear, complete, and at an appropriate level of abstraction.
Current specifications of security mechanisms and properties vary greatly in quality,
|
