Skip to main content

Roughtime
draft-ietf-ntp-roughtime-09

Document Type Active Internet-Draft (ntp WG)
Authors Watson Ladd , Marcus Dansarie
Last updated 2024-03-04
Replaces draft-roughtime-aanchal, draft-ietf-ntp-roughtime-ecosystem
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Intended RFC status (None)
Formats
Additional resources GitHub Repository
Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state WG Document
Document shepherd (None)
IESG IESG state I-D Exists
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)
draft-ietf-ntp-roughtime-09
Network Time Protocols                                           W. Ladd
Internet-Draft                                       Akamai Technologies
Intended status: Informational                               M. Dansarie
Expires: 5 September 2024                                   4 March 2024

                               Roughtime
                      draft-ietf-ntp-roughtime-09

Abstract

   This document specifies Roughtime - a protocol that aims to achieve
   rough time synchronization even for clients without any idea of what
   time it is.

About This Document

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Status information for this document may be found at
   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-ntp-roughtime/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/wbl/roughtime-draft.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 5 September 2024.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024                [Page 1]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Protocol Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  The Guarantee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Message Format  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     5.1.  Data types  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       5.1.1.  int32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       5.1.2.  uint32  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       5.1.3.  uint64  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       5.1.4.  Tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       5.1.5.  Timestamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     5.2.  Header  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   6.  Protocol Details  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     6.1.  Requests  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       6.1.1.  VER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       6.1.2.  NONC  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     6.2.  Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       6.2.1.  SIG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       6.2.2.  VER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       6.2.3.  NONC  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       6.2.4.  PATH  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       6.2.5.  SERP  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       6.2.6.  CERT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       6.2.7.  INDX  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     6.3.  The Merkel Tree (#tree) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       6.3.1.  Root Value Validity Check Algorithm . . . . . . . . .  10
     6.4.  Validity of Response  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   7.  Integration into NTP  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   8.  Grease  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   9.  Roughtime Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     9.1.  Necessary configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     9.2.  Measurement sequence  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     9.3.  Malfeasence reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   11. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     11.1.  Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number
            Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024                [Page 2]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

     11.2.  Roughtime Version Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     11.3.  Roughtime Tag Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   12. Privacy Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   13. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     13.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     13.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17

1.  Introduction

   Time synchronization is essential to Internet security as many
   security protocols and other applications require synchronization
   [RFC738].  Unfortunately widely deployed protocols such as the
   Network Time Protocol (NTP) [RFC5905] lack essential security
   features, and even newer protocols like Network Time Security (NTS)
   [RFC8915] lack mechanisms to ensure that the servers behave
   correctly.  Furthermore clients may lack even a basic idea of the
   time, creating bootstrapping problems.  Roughtime uses a list of keys
   and servers to resolve this issue.

2.  Conventions and Definitions

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

3.  Protocol Overview

   Roughtime is a protocol for rough time synchronization that enables
   clients to provide cryptographic proof of server malfeasance.  It
   does so by having responses from servers include a signature over a
   value derived from a nonce in the client request.  This provides
   cryptographic proof that the timestamp was issued after the server
   received the client's request.  The derived value included in the
   server's response is the root of a Merkle tree which includes the
   hash of the client's nonce as the value of one of its leaf nodes.
   This enables the server to amortize the relatively costly signing
   operation over a number of client requests.  Single server mode: At
   its most basic level, Roughtime is a one round protocol in which a
   completely fresh client requests the current time and the server
   sends a signed response.  The response includes a timestamp and a
   radius used to indicate the server's certainty about the reported
   time.  For example, a radius of 1,000,000 microseconds means the
   server is absolutely confident that the true time is within one
   second of the reported time.  The server proves freshness of its

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024                [Page 3]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

   response as follows.  The client's request contains a nonce which the
   server incorporates into its signed response.  The client can verify
   the server's signatures and - provided that the nonce has sufficient
   entropy - this proves that the signed response could only have been
   generated after the nonce.

4.  The Guarantee

   A Roughtime server guarantees that a response to a query sent at t1,
   received at t2, and with timestamp t3 has been created between the
   transmission of the query and its reception.  If t3 is not within
   that interval, a server inconsistency may be detected and used to
   impeach the server.  The propagation of such a guarantee and its use
   of type synchronization is discussed in Section 7.  No delay attacker
   may affect this: they may only expand the interval between t1 and t2,
   or of course stop the measurement in the first place.

5.  Message Format

   Roughtime messages are maps consisting of one or more (tag, value)
   pairs.  They start with a header, which contains the number of pairs,
   the tags, and value offsets.  The header is followed by a message
   values section which contains the values associated with the tags in
   the header.  Messages MUST be formatted according to Figure 1 as
   described in the following sections.

   Messages MAY be recursive, i.e. the value of a tag can itself be a
   Roughtime message.

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024                [Page 4]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

   0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                   Number of pairs (uint32)                    |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                                                               |
   .                                                               .
   .                     N-1 offsets (uint32)                      .
   .                                                               .
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                                                               |
   .                                                               .
   .                        N tags (uint32)                        .
   .                                                               .
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                                                               |
   .                                                               .
   .                            Values                             .
   .                                                               .
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                        Figure 1: Roughtime Message

5.1.  Data types

5.1.1.  int32

   An int32 is a 32 bit signed integer.  It is serialized least
   significant byte first in sign-magnitude representation with the sign
   bit in the most significant bit.  The negative zero value
   (0x80000000) MUST NOT be used and any message with it is
   syntactically invalid and MUST be ignored.

5.1.2.  uint32

   A uint32 is a 32 bit unsigned integer.  It is serialized with the
   least significant byte first.

5.1.3.  uint64

   A uint64 is a 64 bit unsigned integer.  It is serialized with the
   least significant byte first.

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024                [Page 5]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

5.1.4.  Tag

   Tags are used to identify values in Roughtime messages.  A tag is a
   uint32 but may also be listed in this document as a sequence of up to
   four ASCII characters [RFC20].  ASCII strings shorter than four
   characters can be unambiguously converted to tags by padding them
   with zero bytes.  For example, the ASCII string "NONC" would
   correspond to the tag 0x434e4f4e and "PAD" would correspond to
   0x00444150.  Note that when encoded into a message the ASCII values
   will be in the natural bytewise order.

5.1.5.  Timestamp

   A timestamp is a uint64 count of seconds since the Unix epoch in UTC.

5.2.  Header

   All Roughtime messages start with a header.  The first four bytes of
   the header is the uint32 number of tags N, and hence of (tag, value)
   pairs.  The following 4*(N-1) bytes are offsets, each a uint32.  The
   last 4*N bytes in the header are tags.  Offsets refer to the
   positions of the values in the message values section.  All offsets
   MUST be multiples of four and placed in increasing order.  The first
   post-header byte is at offset 0.  The offset array is considered to
   have a not explicitly encoded value of 0 as its zeroth entry.  The
   value associated with the ith tag begins at offset[i] and ends at
   offset[i+1]-1, with the exception of the last value which ends at the
   end of the message.  Values may have zero length.  Tags MUST be
   listed in the same order as the offsets of their values and MUST also
   be sorted in ascending order by numeric value.  A tag MUST NOT appear
   more than once in a header.

6.  Protocol Details

   As described in Section 3, clients initiate time synchronization by
   sending requests containing a nonce to servers who send signed time
   responses in return.  Roughtime packets can be sent between clients
   and servers either as UDP datagrams or via TCP streams.  Servers
   SHOULD support the UDP transport mode, while TCP transport is
   OPTIONAL.  A Roughtime packet MUST be formatted according to Figure 2
   and as described here.  The first field is a uint64 with the value
   0x4d49544847554f52 ("ROUGHTIM" in ASCII).  The second field is a
   uint32 and contains the length of the third field.  The third and
   last field contains a Roughtime message as specified in Section 5.

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024                [Page 6]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

   0                   1                   2                   3
   0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                  0x4d49544847554f52 (uint64)                  |
   |                        ("ROUGHTIM")                           |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                    Message length (uint32)                    |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                                                               |
   .                                                               .
   .                      Roughtime message                        .
   .                                                               .
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                         Figure 2: Roughtime packet

   Roughtime request and response packets MUST be transmitted in a
   single datagram when the UDP transport mode is used.  Setting the
   packet's don't fragment bit [RFC791] is OPTIONAL in IPv4 networks.
   Multiple requests and responses can be exchanged over an established
   TCP connection.  Clients MAY send multiple requests at once and
   servers MAY send responses out of order.  The connection SHOULD be
   closed by the client when it has no more requests to send and has
   received all expected responses.  Either side SHOULD close the
   connection in response to synchronization, format, implementation-
   defined timeouts, or other errors.  All requests and responses MUST
   contain the VER tag.  It contains a list of one or more uint32
   version numbers.  The version of Roughtime specified by this memo has
   version number 1.  NOTE TO RFC EDITOR: remove this paragraph before
   publication.  For testing drafts of this memo, a version number of
   0x80000000 plus the draft number is used.

6.1.  Requests

   A request MUST contain the tags VER and NONC.  Tags other than NONC
   and VER SHOULD be ignored by the server.  A future version of this
   protocol may mandate additional tags in the message and asign them
   semantic meaning.  The size of the request message SHOULD be at least
   1024 bytes when the UDP transport mode is used.  To attain this size
   the ZZZZ tag SHOULD be added to the message.  Its value SHOULD be all
   zeros.  Responding to requests shorter than 1024 bytes is OPTIONAL
   and servers MUST NOT send responses larger than the requests they are
   replying to.

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024                [Page 7]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

6.1.1.  VER

   In a request, the VER tag contains a list of versions.  The VER tag
   MUST include at least one Roughtime version supported by the client.
   The client MUST ensure that the version numbers and tags included in
   the request are not incompatible with each other or the packet
   contents.

6.1.2.  NONC

   The value of the NONC tag is a 32 byte nonce.  It SHOULD be generated
   in a manner indistinguishable from random.  BCP 106 contains specific
   guidelines regarding this [RFC4086].

6.2.  Responses

   A response MUST contain the tags SIG, VER, NONC, PATH, SREP, CERT,
   and INDX.

6.2.1.  SIG

   In general, a SIG tag value is a 64 byte Ed25519 signature [RFC8032]
   over a concatenation of a signature context ASCII string and the
   entire value of a tag.  All context strings MUST include a
   terminating zero byte.  The SIG tag in the root of a response MUST be
   a signature over the SREP value using the public key contained in
   CERT.  The context string MUST be "RoughTime v1 response signature".

6.2.2.  VER

   In a response, the VER tag MUST contain a single version number.  It
   SHOULD be one of the version numbers supplied by the client in its
   request.  The server MUST ensure that the version number corresponds
   with the rest of the packet contents.

6.2.3.  NONC

   The NONC tag MUST contain the nonce of the message being responded
   to.

6.2.4.  PATH

   The PATH tag value MUST be a multiple of 32 bytes long and represent
   a path of 32 byte hash values in the Merkle tree used to generate the
   ROOT value as described in a later section In the case where a
   response is prepared for a single request and the Merkle tree
   contains only the root node, the size of PATH MUST be zero.

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024                [Page 8]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

6.2.5.  SERP

   The SREP tag contains a time response.  Its value MUST be a Roughtime
   message with the tags ROOT, MIDP, and RADI.  The server MAY include
   any of the tags DUT1, DTAI, and LEAP in the contents of the SREP tag.
   The ROOT tag MUST contain a 32 byte value of a Merkle tree root as
   described in Section 6.3.  The MIDP tag value MUST be timestamp of
   the moment of processing.  The RADI tag value MUST be a uint32
   representing the server's estimate of the accuracy of MIDP in
   seconds.  Servers MUST ensure that the true time is within (MIDP-
   RADI, MIDP+RADI) at the time they transmit the response message.

6.2.6.  CERT

   The CERT tag contains a public-key certificate signed with the
   server's long-term key.  Its value is a Roughtime message with the
   tags DELE and SIG, where SIG is a signature over the DELE value.  The
   context string used to generate SIG MUST be "RoughTime v1 delegation
   signature--".  The DELE tag contains a delegated public-key
   certificate used by the server to sign the SREP tag.  Its value is a
   Roughtime message with the tags MINT, MAXT, and PUBK.  The purpose of
   the DELE tag is to enable separation of a long-term public key from
   keys on devices exposed to the public Internet.  The MINT tag is the
   minimum timestamp for which the key in PUBK is trusted to sign
   responses.  MIDP MUST be more than or equal to MINT for a response to
   be considered valid.  The MAXT tag is the maximum timestamp for which
   the key in PUBK is trusted to sign responses.  MIDP MUST be less than
   or equal to MAXT for a response to be considered valid.  The PUBK tag
   contains a temporary 32 byte Ed25519 public key which is used to sign
   the SREP tag.

6.2.7.  INDX

   The INDX tag value is a uint32 determining the position of NONC in
   the Merkle tree used to generate the ROOT value as described in later
   section TODO.

6.3.  The Merkel Tree (#tree)

   A Merkle tree is a binary tree where the value of each non-leaf node
   is a hash value derived from its two children.  The root of the tree
   is thus dependent on all leaf nodes.  In Roughtime, each leaf node in
   the Merkle tree represents the nonce in one request.  Leaf nodes are
   indexed left to right, beginning with zero.  The values of all nodes
   are calculated from the leaf nodes and up towards the root node using
   the first 32 bytes of the output of the SHA-512 hash algorithm
   [RFC6234].  For leaf nodes, the byte 0x00 is prepended to the nonce
   before applying the hash function.  For all other nodes, the byte

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024                [Page 9]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

   0x01 is concatenated with first the left and then the right child
   node value before applying the hash function.  The value of the
   Merkle tree's root node is included in the ROOT tag of the response.
   The index of a request's nonce node is included in the INDX tag of
   the response.  The values of all sibling nodes in the path between a
   request's nonce node and the root node is stored in the PATH tag so
   that the client can reconstruct and validate the value in the ROOT
   tag using its nonce.  These values are each 32 bytes and are stored
   one after the other with no additional padding or structure.  The
   order in which they are stored is described in the next section.

6.3.1.  Root Value Validity Check Algorithm

   We describe how to compute the root hash of the Merkel tree from the
   values in the tags PATH, INDX, and NONC.  Our algorithm maintains a
   current hash value.  The bits of INDX are ordered from least to most
   significant in this algorithm.  At initialization hash is set to
   H(0x00 || nonce).  If no more entries remain in PATH the current hash
   is the hash of the Merkel tree.  All remaining bits of INDX must be
   zero.  Otherwise let node be the next 32 bytes in PATH.  If the
   current bit in INDX is 0 then hash = H(0x01 || node || hash), else
   hash = H(0x01 || hash || node).

6.4.  Validity of Response

   A client MUST check the following properties when it receives a
   response.  We assume the long-term server public key is known to the
   client through other means.

   The signature in CERT was made with the long-term key of the server.

   The DELE timestamps and the MIDP value are consistent.

   The INDX and PATH values prove NONC was included in the Merkle tree
   with value ROOT using the algorithm in Section 6.3.1.

   The signature of SREP in SIG validates with the public key in DELE.

   A response that passes these checks is said to be valid.  Validity of
   a response does not prove the time is correct, but merely that the
   server signed it, and thus promises that it began to compute the
   signature at a time in the interval (MIDP-RADI, MIDP+RADI).

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024               [Page 10]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

7.  Integration into NTP

   We assume that there is a bound PHI on the frequency error in the
   clock on the machine.  Given a measurement taken at a local time t,
   we know the true time is in (t-delta-sigma, t-delta+sigma).  After d
   seconds have elapsed we know the true time is within (t-delta-sigma-
   d_PHI, t-delta+sigma+d_PHI).  A simple and effective way to mix with
   NTP or PTP discipline of the clock is to trim the observed intervals
   in NTP to fit entirely within this window or reject measurements that
   fall to far outside.  This assumes time has not been stepped.  If the
   NTP process decides to step the time, it MUST use Roughtime to ensure
   the new truetime estimate that will be stepped to is consistent with
   the true time.  Should this window become too large, another
   Roughtime measurement is called for.  The definition of "too large"
   is implementation defined.  Implementations MAY use other, more
   sophisticated means of adjusting the clock respecting Roughtime
   information.  Other applications such as X.509 verification may wish
   to apply different rules.

8.  Grease

   Servers MAY send back a fraction of responses that are syntactically
   invalid or contain invalid signatures as well as incorrect times.
   Clients MUST properly reject such responses.  Servers MUST NOT send
   back responses with incorrect times and valid signatures.  Either
   signature MAY be invalid for this application.

9.  Roughtime Clients

9.1.  Necessary configuration

   To carry out a roughtime measurement a client must be equiped with a
   list of servers, a minimum of three of which are operational, not run
   by the same parties.  It must also have a means of reporting to the
   provider of such a list, such as an OS vendor or software vendor, a
   failure report as described below.

9.2.  Measurement sequence

   The client randomly permutes three servers from the list, and
   sequentially queries them.  The first probe uses a NONC that is
   randomly generated.  The second query uses H(resp||rand) where rand
   is a random 32 byte value and resp is the entire response to the
   first probe.  The third query uses H(resp||rand) for a different 32
   byte value.  If the times reported are consistent with the causal
   ordering, and the delay is within a system provided parameter, the
   measurement succeeds.  If they are not consistent, there has been
   malfeasance and the client SHOULD store a report for evaluation,

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024               [Page 11]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

   alert the operator, and make another measurement.

9.3.  Malfeasence reporting

   A malfeasance report is a JSON object with keys "nonces" containing
   an array of the rand values as base64 encoded strings and "responses"
   containing the responses as base64 encoded strings.  This report is
   cryptographic proof that at least one server generated an incorrect
   response.  Malfeasence reports MAY be transported by any means to the
   relevant vendor or server operator for discussion.  A malfeasance
   report is cryptographic proof that the responses arrived in that
   order, and can be used to demonstrate that a server sent the wrong
   time.  The venues for sharing such reports and what to do about them
   are outside the scope of this document.

10.  Security Considerations

   Since the only supported signature scheme, Ed25519, is not quantum
   resistant, the Roughtime version described in this memo will not
   survive the advent of quantum computers.  Maintaining a list of
   trusted servers and adjudicating violations of the rules by servers
   is not discussed in this document and is essential for security.
   Roughtime clients MUST regularly update their view of which servers
   are trustworthy in order to benefit from the detection of
   misbehavior.  Validating timestamps made on different dates requires
   knowledge of leap seconds in order to calculate time intervals
   correctly.  Servers carry out a significant amount of computation in
   response to clients, and thus may experience vulnerability to denial
   of service attacks.  This protocol does not provide any
   confidentiality.  Given the nature of timestamps such impact is
   minor.  The compromise of a PUBK's private key, even past MAXT, is a
   problem as the private key can be used to sign invalid times that are
   in the range MINT to MAXT, and thus violate the good behavior
   guarantee of the server.  Servers MUST NOT send response packets
   larger than the request packets sent by clients, in order to prevent
   amplification attacks.

11.  IANA Considerations

11.1.  Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry

   IANA is requested to allocate the following entry in the Service Name
   and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry:

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024               [Page 12]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

     Service Name: Roughtime

     Transport Protocol: tcp,udp

     Assignee: IESG <iesg@ietf.org>

     Contact: IETF Chair <chair@ietf.org>

     Description: Roughtime time synchronization

     Reference: [[this memo]]

     Port Number: [[TBD1]], selected by IANA from the User Port range

11.2.  Roughtime Version Registry

   IANA is requested to create a new registry entitled "Roughtime
   Version Registry".  Entries shall have the following fields:

     Version ID (REQUIRED): a 32-bit unsigned integer

     Version name (REQUIRED): A short text string naming the version
     being identified.

     Reference (REQUIRED): A reference to a relevant specification
     document.

   The policy for allocation of new entries SHOULD be: IETF Review.

   The initial contents of this registry shall be as follows:

     +=======================+======================+===============+
     | Version ID            | Version name         | Reference     |
     +=======================+======================+===============+
     | 0x0                   | Reserved             | [[this memo]] |
     +-----------------------+----------------------+---------------+
     | 0x1                   | Roughtime version 1  | [[this memo]] |
     +-----------------------+----------------------+---------------+
     | 0x2-0x7fffffff        | Unassigned           |               |
     +-----------------------+----------------------+---------------+
     | 0x80000000-0xffffffff | Reserved for Private | [[this memo]] |
     +-----------------------+----------------------+---------------+
     |                       | or Experimental use  |               |
     +-----------------------+----------------------+---------------+

                                 Table 1

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024               [Page 13]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

11.3.  Roughtime Tag Registry

   IANA is requested to create a new registry entitled "Roughtime Tag
   Registry".  Entries SHALL have the following fields:

          Tag (REQUIRED): A 32-bit unsigned integer in hexadecimal format.

          ASCII Representation (OPTIONAL): The ASCII representation of the
          tag in accordance with Section 5.1.4 of this memo, if applicable.

          Reference (REQUIRED): A reference to a relevant specification
          document.

   The policy for allocation of new entries in this registry SHOULD be:
   Specification Required.

   The initial contents of this registry SHALL be as follows:

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024               [Page 14]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

           +============+======================+===============+
           |        Tag | ASCII Representation | Reference     |
           +============+======================+===============+
           | 0x7a7a7a7a | ZZZZ                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x00474953 | SIG                  | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x00524556 | VER                  | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x434e4f4e | NONC                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x454c4544 | DELE                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x48544150 | PATH                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x49444152 | RADI                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x4b425550 | PUBK                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x5044494d | MIDP                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x50455253 | SREP                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x544e494d | MINT                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x544f4f52 | ROOT                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x54524543 | CERT                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x5458414d | MAXT                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+
           | 0x58444e49 | INDX                 | [[this memo]] |
           +------------+----------------------+---------------+

                                  Table 2

12.  Privacy Considerations

   This protocol is designed to obscure all client identifiers.  Servers
   necessarily have persistent long-term identities essential to
   enforcing correct behavior.  Generating nonces in a nonrandom manner
   can cause leaks of private data or enable tracking of clients as they
   move between networks.

13.  References

13.1.  Normative References

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024               [Page 15]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

   [RFC20]    Cerf, V., "ASCII format for network interchange", STD 80,
              RFC 20, DOI 10.17487/RFC0020, October 1969,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc20>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.

   [RFC4086]  Eastlake 3rd, D., Schiller, J., and S. Crocker,
              "Randomness Requirements for Security", BCP 106, RFC 4086,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4086, June 2005,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4086>.

   [RFC6234]  Eastlake 3rd, D. and T. Hansen, "US Secure Hash Algorithms
              (SHA and SHA-based HMAC and HKDF)", RFC 6234,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6234, May 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6234>.

   [RFC791]   Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC0791, September 1981,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc791>.

   [RFC8032]  Josefsson, S. and I. Liusvaara, "Edwards-Curve Digital
              Signature Algorithm (EdDSA)", RFC 8032,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8032, January 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8032>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

13.2.  Informative References

   [RFC5905]  Mills, D., Martin, J., Ed., Burbank, J., and W. Kasch,
              "Network Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms
              Specification", RFC 5905, DOI 10.17487/RFC5905, June 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5905>.

   [RFC738]   Harrenstien, K., "Time server", RFC 738,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC0738, October 1977,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc738>.

   [RFC8915]  Franke, D., Sibold, D., Teichel, K., Dansarie, M., and R.
              Sundblad, "Network Time Security for the Network Time
              Protocol", RFC 8915, DOI 10.17487/RFC8915, September 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8915>.

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024               [Page 16]
Internet-Draft                  Roughtime                     March 2024

Acknowledgments

   Thomas Peterson corrected multiple nits.  Peter Löthberg, Tal
   Mizrahi, Ragnar Sundblad, Kristof Teichel, and the other members of
   the NTP working group contributed comments and suggestions.

Authors' Addresses

   Watson Ladd
   Akamai Technologies
   Email: watsonbladd@gmail.com

   Marcus Dansarie
   Email: marcus@dansarie.se

Ladd & Dansarie         Expires 5 September 2024               [Page 17]