RELIABLE SOFTWARE AND COMMUNICATION .1. AN OVERVIEW

We discuss the general state of affairs in a variety of related areas ranging from software safety, reliability, and testing, protocol speci fication and verification, network congestion-control and reliability, to communication security and complexity. We intend to identify usefu l theory and tools, point out connections between different areas, and to a large extent, raise a number of questions whose answers may stil l lie far beyond the limits of out current knowledge. Some of these ar eas are still in a very primitive state and call for new ideas, bold a pproaches, radical thinking, and perhaps extraordinary efforts. This p aper is originally the overview section of a Bellcore technical report . The remainder of the report consisted of the following surveys in se lected areas, two of which (A and B) also appear in this issue. A. Qua lity, Reliability, and Safety by Bob Horgan, Sid Dalal, and Jon Ketten ring [1]. B. Congestion control and network reliability by Brian Coan and Dan Heyman [2]. C. Protocol specification and validation by Linda Ness [3]. D. Security and correctness of computation by Stuart Haber [ 4].