Fast automatic security protocol generation

An automatic security protocol generator is described that useslogic-based heuristic rules to guide it in a backward search for suitableprotocols from protocol goals. The approach taken is unlike exist-ing automatic protocol generators which typically carry out a forwardsearch for candidate protocols from the protocol assumptions. A pro-totype generator has been built that performs well in the automaticgeneration of authentication and key exchange protocols. “In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be ableto reason backward.”—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes),A Study in Scarlet, 1887.