Classical Knowledge for Quantum Security

We propose a decision procedure for analysing security of quantum cryptographic protocols, combining a classical algebraic rewrite system for knowledge with an operational semantics for quantum distributed computing. As a test case, we use our procedure to reason about security properties of a recently developed quantum secret sharing protocol that uses graph states. We analyze three different scenarios based on the safety assumptions of the classical and quantum channels and discover the path of an attack in the presence of an adversary. The epistemic analysis that leads to this and similar types of attacks is purely based on our classical notion of knowledge.Comment: extended abstract, 13 page

Common Knowledge in Email Exchanges

We consider a framework in which a group of agents communicates by means of emails, with the possibility of replies, forwards and blind carbon copies (BCC). We study the epistemic consequences of such email exchanges by introducing an appropriate epistemic language and semantics. This allows us to find out what agents learn from the emails they receive and to determine when a group of agents acquires common knowledge of the fact that an email was sent. We also show that in our framework from the epistemic point of view the BCC feature of emails cannot be simulated using messages without BCC recipients.Comment: 34 pages. To appear in ACM Transactions on Computational Logi

Logic of Information Flow on Communication Channels (Extended Abstract)

We develop an epistemic logic to specify and reason about information flow and its underlying communication channels. By combining ideas from Dynamic Epistemic Logic (DEL) and Interpreted Systems (IS), our semantics offers a natural and neat way of modelling multi-agent communication scenarios with different assumptions about the observational power of agents

Trust and distrust in contradictory information transmission

We analyse the problem of contradictory information distribution in networks of agents with positive and negative trust. The networks of interest are built by ranked agents with different epistemic attitudes. In this context, positive trust is a property of the communication between agents required when message passing is executed bottom-up in the hierarchy, or as a result of a sceptic agent checking information. These two situations are associated with a confirmation procedure that has an epistemic cost. Negative trust results from refusing verification, either of contradictory information or because of a lazy attitude. We offer first a natural deduction system called SecureNDsim to model these interactions and consider some meta-theoretical properties of its derivations. We then implement it in a NetLogo simulation to test experimentally its formal properties. Our analysis concerns in particular: conditions for consensus-reaching transmissions; epistemic costs induced by confirmation and rejection operations; the influence of ranking of the initially labelled nodes on consensus and costs; complexity results

An Abstract Formal Basis for Digital Crowds

Crowdsourcing, together with its related approaches, has become very popular in recent years. All crowdsourcing processes involve the participation of a digital crowd, a large number of people that access a single Internet platform or shared service. In this paper we explore the possibility of applying formal methods, typically used for the verification of software and hardware systems, in analysing the behaviour of a digital crowd. More precisely, we provide a formal description language for specifying digital crowds. We represent digital crowds in which the agents do not directly communicate with each other. We further show how this specification can provide the basis for sophisticated formal methods, in particular formal verification.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figure

Dynamic epistemic modelling

This paper introduces DEMO, a Dynamic Epistemic Modelling tool. DEMO llows modelling epistemic updates, graphical display of update results, graphical display of action models, formula evaluation in epistemic models, translation of dynamic epistemic formulas to PDL formulas, and so on. The paper implements a reduction of dynamic epistemic logic to PDL. The reduction of dynamic epistemic logic to automata PDL from Van Benthem and Kooi is also discussed and implemented. Epistemic models are minimized under bisimulation, and update action models are minimized under action emulation (the appropriate structural notion for having the same update effect). The paper is an exemplar of tool building for epistemic updatelogic. It contains the full code of an implementation in Haskell in `literate programming' style, of DEM

Trust and distrust in contradictory information transmission

We analyse the problem of contradictory information distribution in networks of agents with positive and negative trust. The networks of interest are built by ranked agents with different epistemic attitudes. In this context, positive trust is a property of the communication between agents required when message passing is executed bottom-up in the hierarchy, or as a result of a sceptic agent checking information. These two situations are associated with a confirmation procedure that has an epistemic cost. Negative trust results from refusing verification, either of contradictory information or because of a lazy attitude. We offer first a natural deduction system called SecureNDsim to model these interactions and consider some meta-theoretical properties of its derivations. We then implement it in a NetLogo simulation to test experimentally its formal properties. Our analysis concerns in particular: conditions for consensus-reaching transmissions; epistemic costs induced by confirmation and rejection operations; the influence of ranking of the initially labelled nodes on consensus and costs; complexity results