Derek

researcher | formal verification
protocol snarkification at @ethereumfndn

[Derek @dhsorens]

We at Protocol Snarkification - me and @alexanderlhicks, plus about 30 or so external collaborators - are working hard with formal verification to ship the highest-assurance zkVMs possible. (see end of thread for collaborators) (1/n)

[Peter Hague @peterrhague]

If he hadn’t been persecuted to death by his government, he could well have lived long enough to witness much of the computer revolution.

At age 57 he would’ve seen Apollo 11 land on the Moon, using the most advanced computers of the time
At age 69 he would’ve seen the release of the IBM PC
In his 80s he would’ve seen the dot com bubble.
If he made it to 95, he might have been there when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone.

[MIT CSAIL @MIT_CSAIL]

In case of fire, save your code first.

Image v/@igor_os777

[Derek @dhsorens]

@hrkrshnn Find bugs in CompCert :)

[Derek @dhsorens]

@fede_intern @ethereum This is a super important point. Formal verification greatly reduces the trusted codebase but it doesn’t totally rule out any possibility of bugs. we aim to reduce the TCB as much as possible and then highly scrutinize the rest using all the tools we have

[Derek @dhsorens]

Ok come on “lies” is too much. FV is marketed sometimes as “prove absence of bugs” by those trying to sell you something (marketing ppl) but an expert knows that FV is all about reducing the trusted codebase and that absolutely eliminating bugs is infeasible. Bugs you find will almost certainly be bad specs, on the verification boundary, or out of scope of verification - which for the record I think is great if you’re able to find them. Find a formal proof that is actually false and I will concede so-called “lies”

[Derek @dhsorens]

@fede_intern @ethereum This is a super important point. Formal verification greatly reduces the trusted codebase but it doesn’t totally rule out any possibility of bugs. we aim to reduce the TCB as much as possible and then highly scrutinize the rest using all the tools we have

[Fede’s intern 🥊 @fede_intern]

i’m really into formal verification and i think now with AI it’s gonna be used almost everywhere but please don’t drink the kool aid. it’s not magic. there will still be bugs.

[Eli Ben-Sasson | Starknet.io @EliBenSasson]

Very important update. There will be bugs in all software. The best hope is to have the very best teams find them first. Like this case.

I strongly support Zcash.

[Derek @dhsorens]

zk is wild with undetectable exploits 😰. luckily for us, our use of zk doesn’t actually need the zero knowledge aspect, just the succinct proofs, so we won’t have this problem bc everything will remain fully transparent

[CoinDesk @CoinDesk]

MARKETS: $ZEC crashes over 40% after Shielded Labs reveals a four-year-old bug in @Zcash's Orchard privacy pool that could have allowed unlimited undetectable counterfeit tokens, with no way to confirm whether it was exploited before the June 1 fix.

[Watcher.Guru @WatcherGuru]

JUST IN: Zcash crashes 48% after Claude AI finds critical vulnerability allowing unlimited minting of $ZEC.

It went unnoticed for 4 years until it was patched on June 1st.

[Derek @dhsorens]

we’re always looking for more collaborators and contributors, please reach out if you’re interested! https://t.co/scug85iuUy (n/n)

[Derek @dhsorens]

We at Protocol Snarkification - me and @alexanderlhicks, plus about 30 or so external collaborators - are working hard with formal verification to ship the highest-assurance zkVMs possible. (see end of thread for collaborators) (1/n)

[Derek @dhsorens]

our collaborators in no particular order - and pls tag yourself if I've missed you! @FormalLand @Nethermind @rv_inc @powdr_labs @QuangVDao @katyyhr @Certora @VeridiseInc @Tobias_Grosser @galois @BasspittersBs @tobiasrth @JulekSU @palinatolmach (7/n)

[Peter O'Hearn @PeterOHearn12]

I'm looking for a postdoc to work on Separation Logic in Lean. Position in the London Meta office, in the new AI Verification team. Possibly collaborating with or building on external work on CSLib, Iris-Lean and loom.@AIatMeta @leanprover
https://t.co/HAOutBa3A4