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A Standard for Claiming Transparency and Falsifiability
draft-laurie-tmif-02

Document Type Active Internet-Draft (individual)
Authors Ben Laurie , Tiziano Santoro , Pauline Anthonysamy , Sarah de Haas , Ankur Mathur
Last updated 2026-09-16
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draft-laurie-tmif-02
Network Working Group                                          B. Laurie
Internet-Draft                                                T. Santoro
Intended status: Informational                            P. Anthonysamy
Expires: 20 March 2027                                        S. de Haas
                                                               A. Mathur
                                                              Google LLC
                                                       16 September 2026

        A Standard for Claiming Transparency and Falsifiability
                          draft-laurie-tmif-02

Abstract

   This document specifies a Transparency Metadata Interchange Format
   (TMIF) that allows a distributed or confidential computing system to
   make standardized, verifiable claims about its levels of transparency
   and falsifiability.  Modeled as a structured Endorsement within the
   Remote Attestation Procedures (RATS) architecture, TMIF provides an
   agnostic, schema-defined communication vehicle for claimants to
   declare how their security mitigations and policy governance controls
   can be independently inspected, reproduced, and verified by third-
   party evaluators.

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-laurie-tmif/.

   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/.

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 20 March 2027.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2026 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
   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
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   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  System Component Definitions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Falsifiability of Privacy Claims  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.1.  Transparency Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   4.  Transparency Metadata Interchange Format (TMIF) . . . . . . .   8
     4.1.  Example TMIF Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       4.1.1.  TMIF Field Definitions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.2.  Usage of Transparency Metadata  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     5.1.  Claim Tampering and Integrity Protection  . . . . . . . .  13
       5.1.1.  Claim Tampering and Integrity Protection  . . . . . .  13
       5.1.2.  End-to-End Confidentiality & Access Control . . . . .  13
     5.2.  Replay Attack Mitigations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     5.3.  Realistic TEE Threat Model and Physical Attack
           Boundaries  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   7.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     7.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     7.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15

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1.  Introduction

   As AI-powered services and distributed confidential computing
   environments proliferate, sensitive workloads increasingly process
   private user data in remote cloud or edge infrastructure.  This
   introduces critical trust challenges: users, enterprise relying
   parties, regulators, and security researchers require cryptographic
   assurances that data is handled strictly in accordance with published
   privacy invariants and security mitigations.  While hardware Trusted
   Execution Environments (TEEs) provide execution isolation and remote
   attestation, attestation alone does not communicate the degree to
   which the underlying software components, build pipelines, and
   governance policies are independently inspectable, reproducible, and
   falsifiable.

   This document defines the Transparency Metadata Interchange Format
   (TMIF).  Operating as a standardized Endorsement format within the
   Remote Attestation Procedures (RATS) architecture [RFC9334], TMIF
   provides an extensible, schema-defined mechanism for claimants to
   declare the transparency levels of their system components, the
   specific threats or governance requirements mitigated, and the
   verifiable artifacts supporting those claims.

   Crucially, TMIF separates the _communication_ of transparency
   metadata from the _evaluation_ and scoring of threat models.  It does
   not prescribe specific threat frameworks (e.g., STRIDE, ISO/IEC, or
   App Defense Alliance taxonomies) or proprietary scoring weights.
   Instead, it defines a standard structure (specified in CDDL [RFC8610]
   for both JSON and CBOR representations) allowing claimants to catalog
   mitigated threats and governance policies via standard URNs, describe
   mitigations, and declare the transparency level (the technical
   evidence) of each mitigation.  Independent evaluators, auditors, and
   verifiers can then ingest TMIF documents as inputs to appraisal
   policies or certification workflows.

   A high degree of transparency means that end consumers, or their
   delegates, can assure themselves and have higher confidence around a
   service provider's claims about the usage and handling of their data.
   It is also possible to incentivize third parties and evaluators to
   focus their efforts towards finding falsifying examples of privacy
   and security claims.

   While runtime attestation frameworks such as Attestation Results for
   Secure Interactions [I-D.ietf-rats-ar4si] and EAT Attestation Results
   (EAR) communicate the dynamic operational state of an Attester, TMIF
   communicates the design-time transparency, build reproducibility, and
   public auditability of the system.

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       +-------------------+             +--------------------+
       |  System Provider  |----(TMIF)-->|  Third-Party       |
       |  (Claims Engine)  |             |  Evaluator         |
       +-------------------+             +--------------------+
                |                                   |
        (Attestation Evidence)              (Verifies Proofs)
                v                                   v
       +-------------------+             +--------------------+
       |   Hardware TEE    |             |  Root of Trust     |
       +-------------------+             +--------------------+

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.

2.1.  System Component Definitions

   A system that is set up to provide transparency and falsifiability
   will generally include the following components, which may have
   details specified in the TMIF:

   Accelerators  When a TEE offloads computation to a hardware
      accelerator (e.g., a GPU, NPU), then in general the entire data
      pathway will be secured.  This implies a mutually authenticated
      and encrypted channel between the host CPU's TEE and a TEE within
      the accelerator itself.  The accelerator would also have its own
      capacity for secure processing and attestation.  The TMIF format
      should be able to describe all of these implementation details.

   Attester  The entity (comprising both hardware and software elements)
      that creates _Evidence_ about its state, configuration, or
      environment.  It exposes this cryptographically bound data to
      prove its trustworthiness to a remote peer.  For example, in a
      mobile application context, the handset's hardware-isolated Secure
      Element or Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) acts as the
      Attester to generate secure cryptographic proofs.

   Attestation Results  A structured, cryptographically signed statement
      emitted by a Verifier after evaluating an Attester's Evidence.
      Attestation Results convey the Verifier's formal appraisal of the
      Attester's security posture and trustworthiness, enabling a
      Relying Party to make safe, risk-based decisions about whether to
      trust the Attester with sensitive data.

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   Claimant  The entity (such as a device OEM or service provider)
      generating the TMIF document to assert the transparency of their
      system.  In RATS terminology [RFC9334], the Claimant acts as an
      Endorser asserting design-time mitigation claims, transparency
      levels, and verifiable proof artifacts.

   Client  The device (e.g., a smartphone, laptop, or web browser) used
      to interact with the service.  Includes software and hardware.

   Evaluator  An independent third party, auditor, or certification body
      (such as the App Defense Alliance or independent security research
      lab) that ingests the TMIF Endorsement, validates the declared
      artifacts (open-source repositories, reproducible build
      attestations, public transparency log proofs, or formal
      verification models), and applies appraisal policies to evaluate
      compliance or generate reference appraisal results for Verifiers
      and Relying Parties.

   Evidence  A set of claims about an Attester's state, configuration,
      or execution environment that is cryptographically bound and
      signed by the Attester.  Evidence is intended to be consumed by a
      Verifier, which evaluates its authenticity and structural
      integrity to determine whether the Attester can be considered
      trustworthy.

   Falsifiability  The design property ensuring that any accidental bug
      or malicious subversion of a system's stated privacy or security
      claims inherits a high risk of independent discovery.  A claim is
      highly falsifiable if an evaluator can readily devise and execute
      tests to find definitive counterexamples to it.

   Isolation  TEE environments provide memory protection, even from
      software with higher privilege.

   Remote attestation  As per RATS Architecture [RFC9334], remote
      attestation consists of an interaction wherein an attester
      presents evidence about itself to enable a remote peer to decide
      whether or not to consider the attester trustworthy or not.

   Relying Party  The entity that ultimately consumes the Attestation
      Results from the Verifier to make an informed, risk-based
      decision.  In this architecture, the Relying Party depends on
      these verified results to determine whether or not to trust the
      Attester with sensitive data, allow access to enterprise services,
      or execute specific application logic (such as processing
      protected user data in plaintext).

   Server  A physical or virtualized compute node executing services

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      within the system.

   Service Operator  The entity that operates the service.  This entity
      processes the data and considered an untrusted party in the
      security model, as the goal is to constrain access to user data in
      plaintext.

   Service Provider  The entity that develops, and deploys the service.
      This entity defines data processing logic and is considered an
      untrusted party in the security model, as the goal is to constrain
      access to user data in plaintext.

   TEE  A hardware-isolated secure processing environment that protects
      the confidentiality and integrity of code and data executing
      within it, and can produce attestations about the state of the
      secured environment.

      For the purposes of this standard, we define a TEE as a secure
      area that keeps code and data loaded inside it, usually a hardware
      TEE as mentioned above.  Code and data in TEEs are protected by
      confidentiality and integrity: data confidentiality prevents
      unauthorized entities from outside the TEE from reading data,
      while code integrity prevents code in the TEE from being replaced
      or modified by unauthorized entities.  Crucially, an unauthorized
      entity can include the owner/maintainer of the code and data
      inside the TEE.

      TEEs operate under defined physical and software threat
      boundaries.  While server-class TEEs provide strong isolation
      against privileged host software and hypervisors, resilience
      against physical attacks (e.g., bus tapping, fault injection,
      memory bus interposition) depends on specific hardware designs.
      Claimants MUST document physical security scope in their threat
      claims.

   TEE Manufacturer  The hardware vendor that designs and manufactures
      the processor containing the TEE.

   Transparency  The property of a system configuration, source code, or
      binary execution environment being inspectable, and verifiable by
      external parties.  In TMIF, transparency is quantified by a tiered
      level system (1-5) representing the robustness of the available
      technical proof.

   Trusted Computing Base  As per the National Institute of Standards
      and Technology [NIST-TCB], we consider a trusted computing base to
      encompass the totality of protection mechanisms within a computer
      system, including hardware, firmware, and software, the

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      combination responsible for enforcing a privacy policy.  For the
      purposes of this document, transparency efforts will generally
      pertain only to the trusted computing base.  All other components
      of a system do not need to be transparent in order for an
      evaluator to be able to assess a system's privacy and security
      claims.

   Verifier  A trusted core component that ingests the _Evidence_
      generated by the Attester.  It validates the cryptographic
      authenticity of the claims (checking signatures, certificates, and
      roots of trust) and evaluates them against specific appraisal
      policies.  The Verifier then outputs an appraisal result, known as
      _Attestation Results_, which is a structured, trusted statement
      about the Attester's security posture.

3.  Falsifiability of Privacy Claims

   The aim of specifying the transparency metadata for a given system's
   components is to allow evaluators to assess the level of
   falsifiability of the system.  A fully transparent system is designed
   in such a way to ensure that an accidental or malicious attempt to
   undermine privacy and security claims cannot be introduced without a
   risk of discovery.  This is based on the principle that testing may
   show the presence of bugs or backdoors, but never their absence.  The
   higher the falsifiability of a claim, the more likely it is for
   someone to find a counterexample to it, in the event that claim were
   in fact false (e.g. because a bug or backdoor were introduced,
   accidentally or intentionally).  In practice, a high degree of
   falsifiability also makes it difficult for an insider with highly
   privileged access to purposely subvert the claims of the system
   without risking discovery in doing so.

   The chief criterion for inclusion of metadata in the algorithmic
   calculation of levels is its role in supporting claims that increase
   falsifiability.

   Falsifiability is fundamentally anchored in public, tamper-evident
   transparency logs and multi-party witness networks.  By logging
   cryptographic digests of binaries, build provenance, and
   configuration manifests to immutable append-only ledgers co-signed by
   independent third-party witnesses (e.g., Cloudflare, Glasklar Teknik,
   Geomys), claimants ensure retroactive falsifiability: any
   unauthorized binary or subverted build deployed to production leaves
   an indelible public record that external researchers can
   independently discover and audit.

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3.1.  Transparency Levels

   We expect that evaluators will assess the claimant's mitigations
   based on the level of "proof" provided.  The following standardized
   transparency levels define the tiers of falsifiability:

   +=======+==============+============================================+
   | Level | Name         | Technical Evidence Requirement             |
   +=======+==============+============================================+
   | 1     | Public       | Binary digest is published in an           |
   |       | Binary & Log | immutable, witnessable public              |
   |       |              | transparency log.                          |
   +-------+--------------+--------------------------------------------+
   | 2     | Publicly     | Level 1 evidence + binary is executable    |
   |       | Executable   | in an accessible testbed/sandbox for       |
   |       |              | dynamic analysis & fuzzing.                |
   +-------+--------------+--------------------------------------------+
   | 3     | Public       | Complete source code matching the          |
   |       | Source Code  | released binary version is publicly        |
   |       |              | available.                                 |
   +-------+--------------+--------------------------------------------+
   | 4     | Reproducible | Level 3 evidence + deterministic build     |
   |       | Build        | pipeline with signed build provenance      |
   |       |              | (SLSA Level 3+).                           |
   +-------+--------------+--------------------------------------------+
   | 5     | Formal       | Machine-checked formal mathematical        |
   |       | Verification | proof of cryptographic protocol            |
   |       |              | specifications and/or software             |
   |       |              | implementation invariants.                 |
   +-------+--------------+--------------------------------------------+

                 Table 1: Standardized Transparency Levels

4.  Transparency Metadata Interchange Format (TMIF)

   The Transparency Metadata Interchange Format is an extensible schema
   designed to communicate a system's composition, the claims it makes
   against standardized threats and policy governance requirements, the
   mitigations implemented, and the transparency level of those
   mitigations.  It is specified in Concise Data Definition Language
   (CDDL) [RFC8610] and supports both JSON and CBOR encodings.

   To support complex architectures, TMIF documents catalog claims at
   the *component* level, but enforce an aggregate *system-wide
   transparency lower bound* (representing the "weakest link" of the
   system as a whole).

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   A system claiming compliance with this framework MUST expose a
   verifiable Transparency Metadata Interchange Format (TMIF) record.

   Evaluators SHOULD be able to cryptographically verify these claims
   without out-of-band protocols.

4.1.  Example TMIF Document

   This section provides a sample TMIF document illustrating the
   component and claim structure.

 {
   "system_identifier": "urn:example:system:paic-compute-v1",
   "system_version": "1.0.0",
   "valid_until": "2026-12-31T23:59:59Z",
   "transparency_level_lower_bound": 2,
   "components": [
     {
       "component_identifier": "urn:example:component:inference-node",
       "component_version": "1.0.0",
       "claims": [
         {
           "threat_identifier":
               "urn:ada:threat:information-disclosure:data-in-transit",
           "mitigation_description":
               "Workloads run in TEE VMs; data encrypted via TLS 1.3.",
           "transparency_level": 4,
           "artifacts": [
               "https://github.com/example/network/releases/tag/v1.0",
               "https://example-transparency-log.org/entries/12345"
           ]
         },
         {
           "threat_identifier": "urn:ada:threat:tampering:code-change",
           "mitigation_description":
               "Workload runs in a hardware TEE w/ Remote Attestation.",
           "transparency_level": 2,
           "artifacts": [
               "https://example.com/binaries/inference-node-v1.0.bin"
           ]
         }
       ]
     }
   ]
 }

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   ; CDDL Specification (RFC 8610) for TMIF

   tmif-document = {
       "system_identifier": uri-or-urn,
       "system_version": tstr,
       ? "issued_at": time-rfc3339,
       "valid_until": time-rfc3339,
       ? "nonce": bstr / tstr,
       "transparency_level_lower_bound": transparency-level,
       "components": [+ component-entry],
       ? "governance_claims": [+ governance-claim-entry],
       ? "extensions": { * tstr => any },
       * $$tmif-extension
   }

   component-entry = {
       "component_identifier": uri-or-urn,
       "component_version": tstr,
       ? "submodules": [+ component-entry],
       "claims": [+ mitigation-claim],
       * $$component-extension
   }

   mitigation-claim = {
       "threat_identifier": uri-or-urn,
       ? "threat_category": threat-category,
       "mitigation_description": tstr,
       "transparency_level": transparency-level,
       ? "formal_proof_scope": proof-scope,
       "artifacts": [+ uri-or-urn],
       * $$claim-extension
   }

   governance-claim-entry = {
       "policy_identifier": uri-or-urn,
       "authority_tier": tstr,
       "jurisdiction": tstr,
       "enforcement_mechanisms": [+ tstr],
       "transparency_level": transparency-level,
       "artifacts": [+ uri-or-urn]
   }

   ; --- Types and Enums ---

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   transparency-level = 1..5

   threat-category = "stride" / "policy_governance" / "physical" / tstr

   proof-scope = "protocol" / "implementation" / "both" / tstr

   uri-or-urn = tstr ; Alternatively: uri / tstr
   time-rfc3339 = tstr ; Matches date-time format per RFC 3339

4.1.1.  TMIF Field Definitions

   The fields used in the Transparency Metadata Interchange Format are
   defined below:

   system_identifier (String)  A unique URN or identifier for the
      overall system being assessed.

   system_version (String)  The version string of the overall system.

   valid_until A timestamp indicating when the TMIF document ceases to
   be valid, expressed as an Internet date-time string in full-date "T"
   full-time format conforming to [RFC3339].

   transparency_level_lower_bound (Integer)  The lowest (weakest)
      transparency level found across all mitigations in all components
      of the system.  This reflects the aggregate health of the system.

   components (Array)  A list of the distinct architectural components
      that make up the system (e.g., stateless inference service,
      stateful memory store).

      component_identifier (String)  A unique URN identifying the
         specific component.

      component_version (String)  The version of the component.

      claims (Array)  A list of mitigation claims associated with this
         component.

         threat_identifier (String)  A standardized URN representing the
            specific threat being mitigated (e.g., referencing a
            canonical threat library maintained by an evaluator like the
            App Defense Alliance).

         mitigation_description (String)  A plain-text description of

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            how the threat is mitigated (the technical solution).

         transparency_level (Integer)  The transparency level (1-5)
            representing the available proof for this mitigation.

         artifacts (Array of Strings)  A simple list of URIs pointing to
            the verifiable evidence for the transparency level (e.g.,
            links to open-source repositories, transparency logs, binary
            downloads, or audit reports).

4.2.  Usage of Transparency Metadata

   The separation of concerns in TMIF allows it to be highly flexible:

   1.  *The Claimant (System Provider):* Identifies the threats and
       governance rules relevant to their system (using standardized
       URNs), describes technical mitigations, self-assesses
       transparency levels, and links to verifiable artifact proofs in
       the signed TMIF Endorsement.

   2.  *The Evaluator (Auditing Body):* Parses the TMIF document,
       cryptographically verifies the artifact URIs against public
       transparency logs and source repositories, and validates declared
       transparency levels.  Evaluators apply their domain scoring
       models (e.g., App Defense Alliance or CCC profiles) to issue
       appraisal statements or certification endorsements.

   3.  *The Verifier:* Ingests TMIF Endorsements alongside runtime
       Attestation Evidence from the Attester.  Verifies cryptographic
       signatures, freshness nonces, and transparency bounds against
       appraisal policies to produce trusted Attestation Results (EAR/
       AR4SI).

   4.  *The Relying Party:* Consumes Attestation Results to make risk-
       informed authorization decisions before releasing sensitive user
       data.

5.  Security Considerations

   TMIF documents communicate security, privacy, and governance claims
   but do not themselves enforce runtime isolation.  The integrity,
   authenticity, confidentiality, and freshness of a TMIF document are
   paramount; if an attacker can alter, relay, or forge TMIF metadata,
   relying parties and evaluators could be misled into trusting
   compromised or subverted components.

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5.1.  Claim Tampering and Integrity Protection

   To mitigate the risk of claim tampering, any system claiming
   compliance with this specification MUST ensure that TMIF payloads are
   cryptographically protected at the data layer.

5.1.1.  Claim Tampering and Integrity Protection

   *  *Data Structure Protection:* TMIF payloads MUST be encapsulated in
      a format supporting cryptographic signatures and data integrity
      proofs.  Implementations MUST use JSON Web Signatures (JWS)
      [RFC7515] or COSE-Sign [RFC9052].

   *  *Signature Verification:* The Verifier or Evaluator MUST
      cryptographically validate the signature of the TMIF record
      against a trusted Root of Trust before parsing or appraising
      metadata.  Payloads with invalid, missing, or untrusted signatures
      MUST be rejected immediately.

5.1.2.  End-to-End Confidentiality & Access Control

   Where TMIF documents contain proprietary system topologies,
   unpublished vulnerability mitigations, or sensitive enterprise
   governance configurations, payloads MAY be encrypted end-to-end using
   JSON Web Encryption (JWE) [RFC7516] or COSE-Encrypt.  Transport
   channels SHOULD enforce mutual TLS (mTLS) with client authentication
   [RFC9846] to restrict access to authorized evaluators.

5.2.  Replay Attack Mitigations

   To prevent replay attacks where an historic, validly signed TMIF
   payload is substituted to mask a current compromised state, TMIF
   documents MUST include a cryptographically bound freshness mechanism.

   *  Temporal Freshness: TMIF documents MUST include a 'valid_until'
      timestamp parameter conforming to RFC 3339.  Verifiers MUST reject
      TMIF payloads if current system time exceeds expiration or
      precedes 'issued_at'.

   *  Interactive Nonces: In challenge-response or interactive
      attestation sessions, TMIF queries SHOULD include a cryptographic
      'nonce' provided by the verifier to ensure strict replay
      protection within the validity window.

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5.3.  Realistic TEE Threat Model and Physical Attack Boundaries

   Hardware TEEs operate under defined physical and hardware boundaries:
   * *Physical Attack Scope:* Standard cloud server TEEs (e.g., AMD SEV-
   SNP, Intel TDX) primarily defend against privileged host software and
   hypervisors; they may not inherently mitigate physical bus
   interposition, memory bus tapping, fault injection, or side-channel
   attacks (e.g., TEE.fail, wiretap.fail, BadRAM).  Claimants MUST
   explicitly declare whether physical threats are in-scope and document
   physical mitigation evidence. * *Diversion and Relay Attacks:*
   Attackers may attempt to divert authentic attestation evidence or
   TMIF metadata across sessions.  Systems MUST cryptographically bind
   TMIF endorsements and attestation quotes to the communication channel
   (e.g., using TLS exporter channel binding, token binding, or
   embedding transport public keys into attestation nonces). *
   *Conveyance Protocols:* Implementations MAY use the Secure Transiting
   of Evidence and Endorsements in TEEs (STET) protocol [RFC9999] or
   HTTPS REST profiles to convey TMIF payloads securely.

6.  IANA Considerations

   This document requests IANA to register the media types application/
   tmif+json and application/tmif+cbor, and establish the URN namespace
   urn:ietf:params:tmif: for standardized threat and governance
   identifiers.

7.  References

7.1.  Normative References

   [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>.

   [RFC3339]  Klyne, G. and C. Newman, "Date and Time on the Internet:
              Timestamps", RFC 3339, DOI 10.17487/RFC3339, July 2002,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3339>.

   [RFC7515]  Jones, M., Bradley, J., and N. Sakimura, "JSON Web
              Signature (JWS)", RFC 7515, DOI 10.17487/RFC7515, May
              2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7515>.

   [RFC7516]  Jones, M. and J. Hildebrand, "JSON Web Encryption (JWE)",
              RFC 7516, DOI 10.17487/RFC7516, May 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7516>.

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   [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>.

   [RFC8610]  Birkholz, H., Vigano, C., and C. Bormann, "Concise Data
              Definition Language (CDDL): A Notational Convention to
              Express Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) and
              JSON Data Structures", RFC 8610, DOI 10.17487/RFC8610,
              June 2019, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8610>.

   [RFC9052]  Schaad, J., "CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE):
              Structures and Process", STD 96, RFC 9052,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9052, August 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9052>.

   [RFC9846]  Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
              Version 1.3", RFC 9846, DOI 10.17487/RFC9846, July 2026,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9846>.

7.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-rats-ar4si]
              Voit, E., Birkholz, H., Hardjono, T., Fossati, T., and V.
              Scarlata, "Attestation Results for Secure Interactions",
              Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-rats-ar4si-
              10, 18 May 2026, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-rats-ar4si-10>.

   [NIST-TCB] National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),
              "Glossary: Trusted Computing Base (TCB)", 2026,
              <https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/
              trusted_computing_base>.

   [RFC9334]  Birkholz, H., Thaler, D., Richardson, M., Smith, N., and
              W. Pan, "Remote ATtestation procedureS (RATS)
              Architecture", RFC 9334, DOI 10.17487/RFC9334, January
              2023, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9334>.

   [RFC9999]  Birkholz, H., Smith, N., Fossati, T., and H. Tschofenig,
              "Remote ATtestation procedureS (RATS) Conceptual Message
              Wrapper (CMW)", RFC 9999, DOI 10.17487/RFC9999, July 2026,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9999>.

Acknowledgments

Authors' Addresses

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Internet-Draft                    TMIF                    September 2026

   Ben Laurie
   Google LLC
   Email: benl@google.com

   Tiziano Santoro
   Google LLC
   Email: tzn@google.com

   Pauline Anthonysamy
   Google LLC
   Email: anthonysp@google.com

   Sarah de Haas
   Google LLC
   Email: dehaass@google.com

   Ankur Mathur
   Google LLC
   Email: ankurmathur@google.com

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