Evaluation of Program Specification and Verification Systems

by Sonali Ubhayakar

This is a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA DEPT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A085714. The abstract provided by the Pentagon Computer systems that earn a high degree of trust must be backed by rigorous verification methods. A verification system is an interactive environment for writing formal specifications and checking formal proofs. Verification systems allow large complicated proofs to be managed and checked interactively. We desire evaluation criteria that provide a means of finding which verification system is suitable for a specific research environment and what needs of a particular project the tool satisfies, Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to develop a methodology and set of evaluation criteria to evaluate verification systems for their suitability to improve the assurance that systems meet security objectives. A specific verification system is evaluated with respect to the defined methodology. The main goals are to evaluate whether the verification system has the capability to express the properties of software systems and to evaluate whether the verification system can provide inter-level mapping, a feature required for understanding how a system meets security objectives.

159 pages, Spiral-bound

Published January 1, 2003