Protocol-independent secrecy

Abstract

Inductive proofs of secrecy invariants for cryptographic protocols can be facilitated by separating the protocol dependent part from the protocol-independent part. Our secrecy theorem encapsulates the use of induction so that the discharge of protocol-specific proof obligations is reduced to first-order reasoning. Also, the verification conditions are modularly associated with the protocol messages. Secrecy proofs for Otway-Rees (1987) and the corrected Needham-Schroeder protocol are given.