Title
A program logic for union bounds.
Abstract
We propose a probabilistic Hoare logic aHL based on the union bound, a tool from basic probability theory. While the union bound is simple, it is an extremely common tool for analyzing randomized algorithms. In formal verification terms, the union bound allows flexible and compositional reasoning over possible ways an algorithm may go wrong. It also enables a clean separation between reasoning about probabilities and reasoning about events, which are expressed as standard first-order formulas in our logic. Notably, assertions in our logic are non-probabilistic, even though we can conclude probabilistic facts from the judgments.Our logic can also prove accuracy properties for interactive programs, where the program must produce intermediate outputs as soon as pieces of the input arrive, rather than accessing the entire input at once. This setting also enables adaptivity, where later inputs may depend on earlier intermediate outputs. We show how to prove accuracy for several examples from the differential privacy literature, both interactive and non-interactive.
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2016.107
ICALP
DocType
Volume
Citations 
Conference
abs/1602.05681
4
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.37
19
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Gilles Barthe12337152.36
Marco Gaboardi237738.26
Benjamin Grégoire381748.93
Justin Hsu436424.38
Pierre-Yves Strub554029.87