Zellic and V12 achieve end-to-end x86 binary formal verification
3 Oct 30 · 13d ago · 2 posts · 2 sources · development 3 of 3
Zellic and V12 published the first machine-checked proof covering the behavior of a Linux process executing a statically linked 64-bit x86 glibc binary end-to-end. Targeting the binary level reduces the trusted base compared to source-level verification and covers binaries from multiple compilers and languages, directly addressing security needs in AI-accelerated development.
“Formal verification is the big unlock that allows us to minimize the trusted base requiring security analysis.”
Zellic and V12, Research collaboration · hn ↗Leo de Moura Lean creator, VP at AWSTudor Achim Harmonic CEO and co-founderHarmonic Formal verification software companyZellic and V12 Security and verification research firms
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What people said 12 voices · verbatim
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I think the royal combo is Lean 4/TLA+/etc. plus AI plus a deterministic generator. For large systems formal method assertions need to be compressed down to a human comprehensible size. This can happen when the assertions are confirming the accuracy of a model and its attached code generators. The generator can generate proofs of the generated…
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Examples of comparing the results of Lean and e.g. Rust as is described in the video?I have symbolic error terms in Lean that I guess can be sampled and compared to Monte Carlo analysis? But I already had sampling-based analysis, that's why I had to do all of this (double-slit experiment and gravity with GrC(2,4)) in Lean 4.What would it take to…
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"When AI Writes the Code, Who Proves It Works?" <- AI itself? Lol. Of course, not.Using AI to check AI is unavoidable. What us humans ought to do is *never* to give too much autonomy to AI. When we do so, we give up true intelligence that our work, lives and mankind depend on. Even when we mess up big time, as people, we are accountable for the…
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Very Interesting!Do you have a detailed paper/article written on this?> I think the royal combo is Lean 4/TLA+/etc. plus AI plus a deterministic generator. For large systems formal method assertions need to be compressed down to a human comprehensible size. This can happen when the assertions are confirming the accuracy of a model and its attached…
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I guess I'm missing something but I don't see how this isn't just:1. Creating more work 2. Shifting the existing work to specificationThere's not really such a thing as a perfect specification. One of the things AI is taking away is character by character feedback cycles. Can't count how many times I'll be writing software and think in the middle…
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What do people think of property based testing? I’ve set up a few property based tests and it feels almost like formal verification.I know it’s not the same thing, but PBT’s can catch all sorts of absolutely crazy bugs that I never would think to check for. Stateful stuff, cross-service stuff. My only gripe with PBTs has always been the tedious…
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Currently the foundation theories in mathlib are built with the assumption that formal proofs are expensive. Concepts are fragmented to share as much proof as possible. With LLM the assumption is no longer correct. Concepts and proofs should be built to fit human thinking as much as possible and proofs can be ported by LLMs between theories. Lean…
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Addendum to my comment here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50317578I think i now have a decent top-level view of your architecture (courtesy some simple back-and-forth with Gemini in "AI Mode") and it is pretty good.Thanks for sharing.
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> ... But we expect, in the next few months and years, people will focus way more on the specifications, on the models, on the properties you want the software to have.Does anyone have resources on learning modelling for formal verification? (Does not have to be in Lean)
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Isn’t the point of TLA+ is to model aspects of design at such high level that no deterministic generation is practical as a rule. The TLA+ models may be useful for LLMs (help find real bugs).
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If you use agents to generate formal verification, how do you tell if the properties that are verified are the correct ones?
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I just don’t know why we are using a verification that is hard to read and write for humans
All 3 developments of AI makes formal verification central to software engineering →
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