5 research outputs found
Relational reasoning via probabilistic coupling
Probabilistic coupling is a powerful tool for analyzing pairs of
probabilistic processes. Roughly, coupling two processes requires finding an
appropriate witness process that models both processes in the same probability
space. Couplings are powerful tools proving properties about the relation
between two processes, include reasoning about convergence of distributions and
stochastic dominance---a probabilistic version of a monotonicity property.
While the mathematical definition of coupling looks rather complex and
cumbersome to manipulate, we show that the relational program logic pRHL---the
logic underlying the EasyCrypt cryptographic proof assistant---already
internalizes a generalization of probabilistic coupling. With this insight,
constructing couplings is no harder than constructing logical proofs. We
demonstrate how to express and verify classic examples of couplings in pRHL,
and we mechanically verify several couplings in EasyCrypt