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Secure distributed programming with value-dependent types

Part of: JFP Research Articles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2013

NIKHIL SWAMY ,
JUAN CHEN ,
CÉDRIC FOURNET ,
PIERRE-YVES STRUB ,
KARTHIKEYAN BHARGAVAN  and
JEAN YANG
NIKHIL SWAMY
Affiliation:
Microsoft Research (e-mail: nswamy@microsoft.com, juanchen@microsoft.com, fournet@microsoft.com)
JUAN CHEN
Affiliation:
Microsoft Research (e-mail: nswamy@microsoft.com, juanchen@microsoft.com, fournet@microsoft.com)
CÉDRIC FOURNET
Affiliation:
Microsoft Research (e-mail: nswamy@microsoft.com, juanchen@microsoft.com, fournet@microsoft.com)
PIERRE-YVES STRUB
Affiliation:
MSR-INRIA (e-mail: pierre-yves@strub.nu)
KARTHIKEYAN BHARGAVAN
Affiliation:
INRIA (e-mail: karthikeyan.bhargavan@inria.fr)
JEAN YANG
Affiliation:
MIT (e-mail: jeanyang@csail.mit.edu)
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Abstract

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Distributed applications are difficult to program reliably and securely. Dependently typed functional languages promise to prevent broad classes of errors and vulnerabilities, and to enable program verification to proceed side-by-side with development. However, as recursion, effects, and rich libraries are added, using types to reason about programs, specifications, and proofs becomes challenging. We present F*, a full-fledged design and implementation of a new dependently typed language for secure distributed programming. Our language provides arbitrary recursion while maintaining a logically consistent core; it enables modular reasoning about state and other effects using affine types; and it supports proofs of refinement properties using a mixture of cryptographic evidence and logical proof terms. The key mechanism is a new kind system that tracks several sub-languages within F* and controls their interaction. F* subsumes two previous languages, F7 and Fine. We prove type soundness (with proofs mechanized in Coq) and logical consistency for F*. We have implemented a compiler that translates F* to .NET bytecode, based on a prototype for Fine. F* provides access to libraries for concurrency, networking, cryptography, and interoperability with C#, F#, and the other .NET languages. The compiler produces verifiable binaries with 60% code size overhead for proofs and types, as much as a 45x improvement over the Fine compiler, while still enabling efficient bytecode verification. We have programmed and verified nearly 50,000 lines of F* including new schemes for multi-party sessions; a zero-knowledge privacy-preserving payment protocol; a provenance-aware curated database; a suite of web-browser extensions verified for authorization properties; a cloud-hosted multi-tier web application with a verified reference monitor; the core F* typechecker itself; and programs translated to F* from other languages such as F7 and JavaScript.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Functional Programming , Volume 23 , Issue 4: ICFP 2011 , July 2013 , pp. 402 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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