Top all-time · #6906
Runtime Verification
Company blog · runtimeverification.com/blogsecurityprogramming
Runtime Verification is the company blog at runtimeverification.com, writing about security and programming. Since 2017, 12 different Hacker News readers have linked it 24 times, most often “K Framework – An Overview”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Runtime Verification's posts on the K framework, formal verification of Ethereum languages such as Viper, and undefined behaviour in C. The comments only cite these posts and do not judge them.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
High-assurance cybersecurity consulting for critical systems. Rooted in formal methods, our engineers work closely with teams developing software that cannot fail.
Most-linked posts?
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-07-26
- K Framework – An Overview2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-02-04
What Hacker News says?
Have you never heard of program analysis for security? Genuine question. RVI, the Mayhem developers, and many others would strongly disagree with you: https://runtimeverification.com/match/1.0-SNAPSHOT/docs/benc... https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/mayhem-the-mach... The field evidence would support their position, too. Your claim about C is true just enough to encourage people to not use it if they want…
Comment linking /match/1.0-SNAPSHOT/docs/benchmark/
on “Google Is Uncovering Hundreds of Race Conditions Within the Linux Kernel”Submitted K Framework – An Overview as a story · 5 points
HN discussionRuntime Verification (no affiliation, just know some people who have worked with or for them) are working on tools and providing services for things like this https://runtimeverification.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ethereum Is a Dark Forest”Submitted Formally Verifying Algorand: Reinforcing a Chain of Steel as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThere's been companies around willing to do the work for a small premium for a long time. There's also software designed for security or making it easier. Here's a few, semi-random examples: http://www.sis.pitt.edu/jjoshi/Devsec/CorrectnessByConstruct... https://www.ghs.com/products/safety_critical/integrity-do-17... https://runtimeverification.com/match/ https://galois.com/blog/ http://sel4.systems/ https://muen.co…
Comment linking /match/
on “DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Weapon Systems Vulnerabilities”Submitted IELE: A Formally-Specified VM for the Blockchain (2017) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionBamboo is a formally verifiable programming language being developed for Ethereum: https://github.com/pirapira/bamboo The Bamboo manifest: https://github.com/pirapira/bamboo/blob/master/doc/manifest.... There is a project under way to formalize Viper, which is the other newly developed programming language for Ethereum, as well: https://runtimeverification.com/blog/?p=411
Comment linking /blog/?p=411
on “Parity Wallet security alert”Submitted K vs. Coq as Language Verification Frameworks (2019) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIt's a relevant answer to your personal attack "I don't think you've studied how the attack would work." My job is literally implementing proof-of-stake securely. Also when I work and implement an algorithm, I provide references and sources, which my PR is. > The coordinated bribery attack can be done by having people stake on a different chain until a majority is reached and then softfork and slash the minority. Ch…
Comment linking /blog/formally-verifying-finality-in-gasper-the-core-of-the-beacon-chain/
on “Bitcoin mining hash rate drops as blackouts instituted in China”Submitted End-to-End Formal Verification of Ethereum 2.0 Deposit Smart Contract as a story · 2 points
HN discussionFor those of you interested in formal verification & semantics recommend you have a look at the K framework[0] that can be used for easily creating Formal Semantics. [0]: https://runtimeverification.com/blog/k-framework-an-overview...
Comment linking /blog/k-framework-an-overview/
on “Oxide: A Formal Semantics for Rust”Submitted Code Smell: Boolean Blindness as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThat's already happening. For example, see https://runtimeverification.com/blog/?p=496
Comment linking /blog/?p=496
on “Formal Verification: The Gap Between Perfect Code and Reality”It's not my experience that C can be obviously free of UB and I'm curious to know how you approach that. I'm not aware of any methods or tools that claim to achieve it and there's a long history of "correct" programs written by experts were discovered to contain subtle UB with improvements in automated analysis. Here's one example, from Runtime Verification: https://runtimeverification.com/blog/mare-than-14-of-sv-co…
Comment linking /blog/mare-than-14-of-sv-comps-correct-programs-are-undefined
on “A cryptographically secure bootloader for RISC-V in Rust”This is the same underlying tool that powers KCC and RVMatch. https://github.com/kframework/c-semantics https://runtimeverification.com/match/ Exactly what I’d hoped someone would do. Well, the first step anyway. The second step was doing a Rust semantics in terms of the C semantics already done. That allows quite a few things like Rust-to-C compilers, defeating Karger-Thompson attack, and potentially verification o…
Comment linking /match/
on “KRust: A Formal Executable Semantics of Rust”You kind of explained it yourself saying 15-17 years ago. Lots of things can improve in that time-frame. PreFix wasn't even that focused on reducing false positives IIRC. Some today are focused on keeping false positives down. A few benchmarked are here in this also-biased article: https://runtimeverification.com/match/1.0-SNAPSHOT/docs/benc... I bring them up because they made the open-source K Framework and a C se…
Comment linking /match/1.0-SNAPSHOT/docs/benchmark/
on “Scaling Static Analyses at Facebook”That team’s awesome. One of few groups in formal methods using rewriting logic (Maude) instead of things like Coq or Isabelle/HOL. They seem to move faster on semantics as a result. They also build their own modified logic called matching logic on top that they claim is better than separation logic. http://www.kframework.org/index.php/Main_Page More interesting, their use of these tools allowed them to make their C…
Comment linking /
on “Defining the Undefinedness of C (2015) [pdf]”Two others worth checking out that focus on soundness with low to no false positives are RV-Match and TrustinSoft Analyzer: https://runtimeverification.com/match/ https://trust-in-soft.com/products/ The RTV people are the one's behind K framework and an executable semantics for C with a GCC-like interface: http://www.kframework.org/index.php/Main_Page https://github.com/kframework/c-semantics That RV-Match builds on…
Comment linking /match/
on “In-Depth: Static Code Analysis (2011)”> Anything else worth knowing? K framework https://runtimeverification.com/blog/k-framework-an-overview
Comment linking /blog/k-framework-an-overview
on “The Hitchhiker's Guide to Logical Verification [pdf] (2023)”Check out KCC, too, since the foundation is open-source, offers extra benefits for languages modeled in it, and has a commercial tool for C with either low or no false positives depending on how it measures up to claims. No affiliation. I just find the K framework plus an executable, formal semantics for C cool as heck. :) https://github.com/kframework/c-semantics https://runtimeverification.com/match/ They also hav…
Comment linking /blog/?p=307
on “Tis-interpreter: An interpreter for detecting undefined behavior in standard C”The difference is that the C++ spec is ~1700+ pages of very dense and oftentimes subtle language that no one fully understands. Moreover, even the committee can't tell you all the UB that exists. There's a proposal to simply enumerate the explicit UB [1] they do know about, but even that doesn't exist yet. When the situation with the language is such that no human or program yet invented can confidently assert the d…
Comment linking /blog/mare-than-14-of-sv-comps-correct-programs-are-undefined
on “Security vulnerability in Rust standard library”I write safety critical code, so I've worked with many of these: frama-C, TIS, Polyspace, KLEE, CBMC, and some that aren't on the list like RV-match, axivion, and sonarqube. With virtually any tool in this category, you need to spend a good amount of time ensuring it's integrated properly at the center of your workflows. They all have serious caveats and usually false positives that need to be addressed before you d…
Comment linking /match
on “Static Analysis Tools for C”Both @adamnemecek and I have said the blockchain ventures might be a good way to get money into formal methods development. Rosu's group is wisely doing just that: using their K Framework [1] to build a VM for blockchains both as a demo of its utility and way to possibly get funding into it. The K Framework is the tool they used to build an executable, formal semantics for C setup to work like GCC compiler. Since it…
Comment linking /match/1.0-SNAPSHOT/docs/benchmark/
on “IELE: A Formally-Specified VM for the Blockchain (2017)”
