Modeling Group Communication Protocols Using Multiset Term Rewriting

G. Denker and J. Millen

Abstract

Protocols for secure group management are essential in applications concerned with confidential authenticated communication among coalition members, authenticated group decisions, or the secure administration of group membership and access control. New languages and models are necessary to appropriately capture the concepts of such protocols and make them amenable to formal analysis.

For this purpose, we developed MuCAPSL (Multicast Common Authentication Protocol Specification Language) and its intermediate language MuCIL (MuCAPSL Intermediate Language). MuCIL is based on multiset term rewriting rules that permit state changes to be presented concisely, and in a way that closely matches the requirements of existing protocol analysis tools. With the help of the Group-Diffie-Hellman protocol suite we illustrate how secure group communication principles are modeled using multiset term rewriting.