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Direct Anonymous Attestation for the Remote Attestation Procedures Architecture
draft-ietf-rats-daa-06

Document Type Active Internet-Draft (rats WG)
Authors Henk Birkholz , Christopher Newton , Liqun Chen , Dave Thaler
Last updated 2024-09-05
Replaces draft-birkholz-rats-daa
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Dec 2023
Submit Direct Anonymous Attestation for RATs to WGLC
Dec 2023
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draft-ietf-rats-daa-06
RATS Working Group                                           H. Birkholz
Internet-Draft                                            Fraunhofer SIT
Intended status: Informational                                 C. Newton
Expires: 9 March 2025                                            L. Chen
                                                    University of Surrey
                                                               D. Thaler
                                                               Microsoft
                                                        5 September 2024

   Direct Anonymous Attestation for the Remote Attestation Procedures
                              Architecture
                         draft-ietf-rats-daa-06

Abstract

   This document maps the concept of Direct Anonymous Attestation (DAA)
   to the Remote Attestation Procedures (RATS) Architecture.  The
   protocol entity DAA Issuer is introduced and its mapping with
   existing RATS roles in DAA protocol steps is specified.

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-rats-daa/.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the Remote ATtestation
   ProcedureS (rats) Working Group mailing list (mailto:rats@ietf.org),
   which is archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/rats/.
   Subscribe at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rats/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/ietf-rats-wg/draft-ietf-rats-daa.

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/.

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   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 9 March 2025.

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

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Direct Anonymous Attestation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  DAA changes to the RATS Architecture  . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   5.  Additions to Remote Attestation principles  . . . . . . . . .   7
   6.  Privacy Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   8.  Implementation Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   Remote ATtestation procedureS (RATS, [I-D.ietf-rats-architecture])
   describe interactions between well-defined architectural constituents
   in support of Relying Parties that require an understanding about the
   trustworthiness of a remote peer.  The identity of an Attester and
   its corresponding Attesting Environments play a vital role in RATS.
   A common way to refer to such an identity is the Authentication
   Secret ID as defined in the Reference Interaction Models for RATS
   [I-D.ietf-rats-reference-interaction-models].  The fact that every
   Attesting Environment can be uniquely identified in the context of
   the RATS architecture is not suitable for every application of remote

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   attestation.  Additional issues may arise when Personally
   identifiable information (PII) -- whether obfuscated or in clear text
   -- are included in attestation Evidence or even corresponding
   Attestation Results.  This document illustrates how Direct Anonymous
   Attestation (DAA) can mitigate the issue of uniquely
   (re-)identifiable Attesting Environments.  To accomplish that goal,
   the protocol entity DAA Issuer as described in [DAA] is introduced
   and its duties as well as its mappings with other RATS roles are
   specified.

2.  Terminology

   This document uses the following set of terms, roles, and concepts as
   defined in [I-D.ietf-rats-architecture]: Attester, Verifier, Relying
   Party, Endorser, Conceptual Message, Evidence, Attestation Result,
   Attesting Environment.

   Additionally, this document uses and adapts, as necessary, the
   following concepts and information elements as defined in
   [I-D.ietf-rats-reference-interaction-models]: Attester Identity,
   Authentication Secret, Authentication Secret ID

   A PKIX Certificate is an X.509v3 format certificate as specified by
   [RFC5280].

   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.  Direct Anonymous Attestation

   Two protocols as described in [DAA] are illustrated: the Join
   Protocol and the DAA-Signing Protocol.  This section specifies the
   mapping of the protocol entity DAA Issuer described in [DAA] as an
   actor in the Join Protocol as well as an actor in the corresponding
   DAA-Signing Protocol to roles specified in the RATS Architecture.

   In the Join Protocol, the protocol entity DAA Issuer takes on the
   RATS roles of Verifier and associated Relying Party.  The mapping is
   illustrated in Figure Figure 1.

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    .--------.     .---------.       .--------.       .-------------.
   | Endorser |   | Reference |     | Verifier |     | Relying Party |
    '-+------'    | Value     |     | Owner    |     | Owner         |
      |           | Provider  |      '---+----'       '----+--------'
      |            '-----+---'           |                 |
      |                  |               |                 |
      | Endorsements     | Reference     | Appraisal       | Appraisal
      |                  | Values        | Policy for      | Policy for
      |                  |               | Evidence        | Attestation
       '-----------.     |               |                 | Results
                    |    |               |                 |
               .----|----|---------------|-----------------|------.
               |    |    |               |                 |      |
               |    v    v               v                 |      |
               |  .-------------------------.              |      |
         .------->|         Verifier        +-----.        |      |
        |      |  '-------------------------'      |       |      |
        |      |                                   |       |      |
        |  Evidence                    Attestation |       |      |
        |      |                       Results     |       |      |
        |      |                                   |       |      |
        |      |                                   v       v      |
  .-----+----. |                               .---------------.  |
  | Attester | |                               | Relying Party |  |
  '----------' |    DAA Issuer                 '---------------'  |
               '--------------------------------------------------'

          Figure 1: RATS Architecture for the Join Protocol

   The Join Protocol is essentially an enrollment protocol that consumes
   Evidence from the Attester (therefore the mapping to the Verifier
   role).  Corresponding Appraisal Policies for Evidence specific to the
   Join Protocol are used to produce Attestation Results to decide
   whether to issue a DAA credential to an Attester or not (therefore
   the mapping to the Relying Party role).

   In the DAA-Signing Protocol, the RATS role Endorser is then taken on
   by the DAA Issuer protocol entity.  The mapping is illustrated in
   Figure Figure 2.

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.---------------.
| DAA Issuer    |
|   .--------.  |  .---------.       .--------.       .-------------.
|  | Endorser | | | Reference |     | Verifier |     | Relying Party |
|   '-+------'  | | Value     |     | Owner    |     | Owner         |
|     |         | | Provider  |      '---+----'       '----+--------'
'-----|---------'  '-----+---'           |                 |
      |                  |               |                 |
      | Endorsements     | Reference     | Appraisal       | Appraisal
      |                  | Values        | Policy for      | Policy for
      |                  |               | Evidence        | Attestation
       '-----------.     |               |                 | Results
                    |    |               |                 |
                    v    v               v                 |
                  .-------------------------.              |
          .------>|         Verifier        +-----.        |
         |        '-------------------------'      |       |
         |                                         |       |
         | Evidence                    Attestation |       |
         |                             Results     |       |
         |                                         |       |
         |                                         v       v
   .-----+----.                                .---------------.
   | Attester |                                | Relying Party |
   '----------'                                '---------------'

       Figure 2: RATS Architecture for the DAA-Signing Protocol

   The DAA Issuer acts as the Endorser for the Group Public Key that is
   used by the Verifier for the appraisal of evidence of anonymized
   Attesters that use the DAA credentials and associated key material to
   produce Evidence.

   In consequence, DAA provides a signature scheme that allows the
   privacy of users that are associated with an Attester (e.g., its
   owner) to be maintained.  Essentially, DAA can be seen as a group
   signature scheme with the feature that given a DAA signature no-one
   can find out who the signer is, i.e., the anonymity is not revocable.
   To be able to sign anonymously, an Attester has to obtain a
   credential from a DAA Issuer.  The DAA Issuer uses a private/public
   key pair to generate credentials for a group of Attesters and makes
   the public key (in the form of a public key certificate) available to
   the Verifier in order to enable it to validate the Evidence received.

   In order to support these DAA signatures, the DAA Issuer MUST
   associate a single key pair with a group of Attesters and use the
   same key pair when creating the credentials for all of the Attesters
   in this group.  The DAA Issuer's group public key certificate

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   replaces the individual Attester Identity documents during
   authenticity validation as a part of the appraisal of Evidence
   conducted by a Verifier.  This is in contrast to intuition that there
   has to be a unique Attester Identity per device.

   For DAA, the role of the Endorser is essentially the same, but it now
   provides Endorsements to the DAA Issuer rather than directly to the
   Verifier.  These Endorsements enable the Attester to obtain a
   credential from the DAA Issuer.

4.  DAA changes to the RATS Architecture

   In order to enable the use of DAA, a new conceptual message, the
   Credential Request, is defined and a new role, the DAA Issuer role,
   is added to the roles defined in the RATS Architecture.

   Credential Request:  An Attester sends a Credential Request to the
      DAA Issuer to obtain a credential.  This request contains
      information about the DAA key that the Attester will use to create
      evidence and, together with Attester endorsement information that
      is provided by the Endorser, to confirm that the request came from
      a valid Attester.

   DAA Issuer:  A RATS role that offers zero-knowledge proofs based on
      public-key certificates used for a group of Attesters (Group
      Public Keys) [DAA].  How this group of Attesters is defined is not
      specified here, but the group must be large enough for the
      necessary anonymity to be assured.

   Effectively, these certificates share the semantics of Endorsements,
   with the following exceptions:

   *  Upon receiving a Credential Request from an Attester, the
      associated group private key is used by the DAA Issuer to provide
      the Attester with a credential that it can use to convince the
      Verifier that its Evidence is valid.  To keep their anonymity, the
      Attester randomizes this credential each time that it is used.
      Although the DAA Issuer knows the Attester Identity and can
      associate this with the credential issued, randomization ensures
      that the Attester's identity cannot be revealed to anyone,
      including the DAA Issuer.

   *  The Verifier can use the DAA Issuer's group public key
      certificate, together with the randomized credential from the
      Attester, to confirm that the Evidence comes from a valid Attester
      without revealing the Attester's identity.

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   *  A credential is conveyed from a DAA Issuer to an Attester in
      combination with the conveyance of the group public key
      certificate from DAA Issuer to Verifier.

5.  Additions to Remote Attestation principles

   In order to ensure an appropriate conveyance of Evidence via
   interaction models in general, the following prerequisite considering
   Attester Identity MUST be in place to support the implementation of
   interaction models.

   Attestation Evidence Authenticity:  Attestation Evidence MUST be
      correct and authentic.

      In order to provide proofs of authenticity, Attestation Evidence
      SHOULD be cryptographically associated with an identity document
      that is a randomized DAA credential.

   The following information elements define extensions for
   corresponding information elements defined in
   [I-D.ietf-rats-reference-interaction-models], which are vital to all
   types of reference interaction models.  Varying from solution to
   solution, generic information elements can be either included in the
   scope of protocol messages (instantiating Conceptual Messages defined
   by the RATS architecture) or can be included in additional protocol
   parameters of protocols that facilitate the conveyance of RATS
   Conceptual Messages.  Ultimately, the following information elements
   are required by any kind of scalable remote attestation procedure
   using DAA with one of RATS's reference interaction models.

   Attester Identity ('attesterIdentity'):  _mandatory_

      In DAA, the Attester's identity is not revealed to the Verifier.
      The Attester is issued with a credential by the DAA Issuer that is
      randomized and then used to anonymously confirm the validity of
      their evidence.  The evidence is verified using the DAA Issuer's
      group public key.

   Authentication Secret IDs ('authSecID'):  _mandatory_

      In DAA, Authentication Secret IDs are represented by the DAA
      Issuer's group public key that MUST be used to create DAA
      credentials for the corresponding Authentication Secrets used to
      protect Evidence.

      In DAA, an Authentication Secret ID does not identify a unique

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      Attesting Environment but is associated with a group of Attesting
      Environments.  This is because an Attesting Environment should not
      be distinguishable and the DAA credential which represents the
      Attesting Environment is randomized each time it used.

6.  Privacy Considerations

   As outlined above, for DAA to provide privacy for the Attester, the
   DAA group must be large enough to stop the Verifier identifying the
   Attester.

   Randomization of the DAA credential by the Attester means that
   collusion between the DAA Issuer and Verifier, will not give them any
   advantage when trying to identify the Attester.

   For DAA, the Attestation Evidence conveyed to the Verifier MUST not
   uniquely identify the Attester.  If the Attestation Evidence is
   unique to an Attester other cryptographic techniques can be used, for
   example, property based attestation [PBA].

7.  Security Considerations

   The anonymity property of DAA makes revocation difficult.  Well known
   solutions include:

   1.  Rogue Attester revocation -- if an Attester's private key is
       compromised and known by the Verifier then any DAA signature from
       that Attester can be revoked.

   2.  EPID - Intel's Enhanced Privacy ID -- this requires the Attester
       to prove (as part of their Attestation) that their credential was
       not used to generate any signature in a signature revocation
       list.

   There are no other special security considerations for DAA over and
   above those specified in the RATS architecture document
   [I-D.ietf-rats-architecture].

8.  Implementation Considerations

   The new DAA Issuer role can be implemented in a number of ways, for
   example:

   1.  As a stand-alone service like a Certificate Authority, a Privacy
       CA.

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   2.  As a part of the Attester's manufacture.  The Endorser and the
       DAA Issuer could be the same entity and the manufacturer would
       then provide a certificate for the group public key to the
       Verifier.

9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

   [DAA]      Brickell, E., Camenisch, J., and L. Chen, "Direct
              anonymous attestation", DOI 10.1145/1030083.1030103,
              Proceedings of the 11th ACM conference on Computer and
              communications security, October 2004,
              <https://doi.org/10.1145/1030083.1030103>.

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

   [RFC5280]  Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S.,
              Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key
              Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List
              (CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, DOI 10.17487/RFC5280, May 2008,
              <https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC5280>.

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

9.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-rats-architecture]
              Birkholz, H., Thaler, D., Richardson, M., Smith, N., and
              W. Pan, "Remote ATtestation procedureS (RATS)
              Architecture", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
              ietf-rats-architecture-22, 28 September 2022,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-rats-
              architecture-22>.

   [I-D.ietf-rats-reference-interaction-models]
              Birkholz, H., Eckel, M., Pan, W., and E. Voit, "Reference
              Interaction Models for Remote Attestation Procedures",
              Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-rats-
              reference-interaction-models-11, 22 July 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-rats-
              reference-interaction-models-11>.

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   [PBA]      Chen, L., Löhr, H., Manulis, M., and A. Sadeghi,
              "Property-Based Attestation without a Trusted Third
              Party", DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-85886-7_3, Lecture Notes in
              Computer Science pp. 31-46, September 2008,
              <https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85886-7_3>.

Authors' Addresses

   Henk Birkholz
   Fraunhofer SIT
   Rheinstrasse 75
   64295 Darmstadt
   Germany
   Email: henk.birkholz@ietf.contact

   Christopher Newton
   University of Surrey
   Email: cn0016@surrey.ac.uk

   Liqun Chen
   University of Surrey
   Email: liqun.chen@surrey.ac.uk

   Dave Thaler
   Microsoft
   United States of America
   Email: dthaler@microsoft.com

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