Department of Computer Science and Technology

Technical reports

Are timestamps worth the effort?
A formal treatment

Giampaolo Bella, Lawrence C. Paulson

September 1998, 12 pages

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.48456/tr-447

Abstract

Theorem proving provides formal and detailed support to the claim that timestamps can give better freshness guarantees than nonces do, and can simplify the design of crypto-protocols. However, since they rely on synchronised clocks, their benefits are still debatable. The debate should gain from our formal analysis, which is achieved through the comparison of a nonce-based crypto-protocol, Needham-Schroeder, with its natural modification by timestamps, Kerberos.

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BibTeX record

@TechReport{UCAM-CL-TR-447,
  author =	 {Bella, Giampaolo and Paulson, Lawrence C.},
  title = 	 {{Are timestamps worth the effort? A formal treatment}},
  year = 	 1998,
  month = 	 sep,
  url = 	 {https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-447.pdf},
  institution =  {University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory},
  doi = 	 {10.48456/tr-447},
  number = 	 {UCAM-CL-TR-447}
}