Ralf Sasse
Senior Researcher at ETH Zurich
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolRalf Sasse is a Senior Researcher at ETH Zurich with 13 years of experience in formal methods and a PhD in Computer Science from UIUC. He specializes in security protocol analysis and tool development, with deep hands-on expertise in Maude, Haskell, Tamarin-prover, Spec#, Java, and C/C++. At ETH he combines independent research with supervising bachelor to PhD students and teaching advanced courses, bridging theory and practical tool-building. His open-source contributions include core enhancements to the widely used Tamarin prover—adding xor support, improving axiom parsing, and demonstrating attacks via case studies—highlighting both engineering rigor and security insight. Colleagues know him for tightening the gap between formal specifications and usable verification tools, and for tackling subtle issues like open-chain logic bugs in provers. Based in Zurich, he brings a rare blend of formal-methods depth and pragmatic software-engineering impact.
13 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Dipl.-Inform., Computer Science, Dipl.-Inform., Computer Science at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Computer Science at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
English, German
Github Skills (9)
it-security10
theorem-proving10
formal-verification10
xor10
cryptography10
security10
logic9
parser8
haskell6
Programming languages (7)
Github contributions (5)
tamarin-prover/tamarin-prover
Dec 2012 - Sep 2021
Main source code repository of the Tamarin prover for security protocol verification.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Security Engineer
Back-end Developer & Security EngineerContributions:9 releases, 4 reviews, 471 commits in 8 years 10 months
Contributions summary:Ralf's commits primarily focused on modifying the Tamarin Prover's core functionality, specifically related to the handling and processing of xor-based cryptographic algorithms and the application of security properties such as observational equivalence. They implemented changes to accommodate these algorithms within the prover's framework, including fixing an issue that led to open chains within the logic. Additionally, the user refactored and enhanced the parsing and handling of axioms and restrictions within the tool, improving its overall robustness and functionality related to cryptographic security analysis. The user was also responsible for working through a variety of case studies, checking properties and showing/generating attacks against protocols.
security-protocoltamarin-prover
tamarin-prover/manual
Jun 2016 - Dec 2020
[Obsolete] Tamarin prover manual: source files
Contributions:137 commits, 17 PRs, 118 pushes in 4 years 6 months
tamarin-prover
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