Process algebra and non-interference

  • Authors:
  • P. Y. A. Ryan;S. A. Schneider

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Computer Security
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

Various formulations of non-interference have been proposed to tryto characterise the absence of information flows in system ornetwork. There is still no consensus in the information securitycommunity as to which of these accurately captures our intuition ofthe notion of secrecy. We argue that non-interference is closely related to thecharacterisation of process equivalence. What constitutes processequivalence is itself a fundamental question in computer sciencewith several distinct definitions proposed in the literature. Weillustrate how several of the definitions of non-interferencemirror notions of process equivalence. Casting these securityconcepts in a process algebraic framework clarifies, for example,the role of non-determinism and allows results to be carried overregarding composition and the completeness of unwinding rules. Wealso discuss some natural generalisations of the approach.