Specifying distributed trust management in LolliMon

Abstract

We propose the monadic linear logic programming language LolliMon as a new foundation for the specification of distributed trust management systems, particularly the RT framework. LolliMon possesses features that make it well-suited to this application, including rigorous logical foundations, an expressive formula language, strong typing, and saturation as a proof resolution strategy. We specify certificate chain discovery in full RT for authorization in a distributed environment where certificates may be stored non-locally and selective retrieval is necessary. The uniform LolliMon specification of authorization and certificate chain discovery eases formal reasoning about the system, and scales to a rich collection of trust management features. The executable LolliMon specification also serves as a prototype implementation.