A Proposed Framework for Analysing Security Ceremonies

The concept of a ceremony as an extension of network and security protocols was introduced by Ellison. There are no currently available methods or tools to check correctness of the properties in such ceremonies. The potential application for security ceremonies are vast and fill gaps left by strong assumptions in security protocols. Assumptions include the provision of cryptographic keys and correct human interaction. Moreover, no tools are available to check how knowledge is distributed among human peers nor their interaction with other humans and computers in these scenarios. The key component of this position paper is the formalisation of human knowledge distribution in security ceremonies. By properly enlisting human expectations and interactions in security protocols, we can minimise the ill-described assumptions we usually see failing. Taking such issues into account when designing or verifying protocols can help us to better understand where protocols are more prone to break due to human constraints.