Mobile Resource Guarantees and Policies

Abstract. This paper introduces notions of resource policy for mobile code to be run on smart devices, to integrate with the proof-carrying code architecture of the Mobile Resource Guarantees (MRG) project. Two forms of policy are used: guaranteed policies which come with proofs and target policies which describe limits of the device. A guaranteed policy is expressed as a function of a methods input sizes, which determines a bound on consumption of some resource. A target policy is defined by a constant bound and input constraints for a method. A recipient of mobile code chooses whether to run methods by comparing between a guaranteed policy and the target policy. Since delivered code may use methods implemented on the target machine, guaranteed policies may also be provided by the platform; they appear symbolically as assumptions in delivered proofs. Guaranteed policies entail proof obligations that must be established from the proof certificate. Before proof, a policy checker ensures that the guaranteed policy refines the target policy; our policy format ensures that this step is tractable and does not require proof. Delivering policies thus mediates between arbitrary target requirements and the desirability to package code and certificate only once.