An Automatically Verified Prototype of the Tokeneer ID Station Specification

Abstract

The Tokeneer project was an initiative set forth by the National Security Agency (NSA, USA) to be used as a demonstration that developing highly secure systems can be made by applying rigorous methods in a cost-effective manner. Altran UK was selected by NSA to carry out the development of the Tokeneer ID Station. The company wrote a Z specification later implemented in the SPARK Ada programming language, which was verified using the SPARK Examiner toolset. In this paper, we show that the Z specification can be readily and naturally encoded in the $$\{log\}$$ { l o g } set constraint language, thereby generating a functional prototype. Furthermore, we show that $$\{log\}$$ { l o g } ’s automated proving capabilities can discharge all the proof obligations concerning state invariants as well as important security properties. As a consequence, the prototype can be regarded as correct with respect to the verified properties. This provides empirical evidence that Z users can use $$\{log\}$$ { l o g } to generate correct prototypes from their Z specifications. In turn, these prototypes enable or simplify some verification activities discussed in the paper.