Liaison statement
Reply to LS on initiation of two new work items on digital emblem

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Digital Emblems (DIEM) working group
would like to thank ITU-T Study Group 17 for its liaison statement ‘LS on
initiation of two new work items on digital emblem’ [1]

The DIEM working group (Working Group) [2] is working to develop digital
emblems, extending the range of emblems identified by laws, agreements or
standards from the physical to the digital sphere and to start its work, the
DIEM WG will develop an initial DNS-based discovery mechanism and associated
validation procedure for digital emblems. It may include other discovery
mechanisms in future extensions.

The DIEM Working Group will define an architecture and discovery mechanism
enabling digital emblems to be presented and validated across applications and
platforms in a cohesive way.

The DIEM Working Group is responsible for developing the technical framework of
digital emblems, designed to meet the requirements of several emblem types
defined in the use cases and requirements draft. The Working Group will also
consider the network security and privacy considerations. DIEM is not defining
new emblems for which there is no physical analogue.

For more information on the Working Group, including its charter, see [2].

The Working Group is currently working on draft-ietf-DIEM-requirements “Digital
Emblems - Use Cases and Requirements” [3] via the standard IETF process (RFC
2026). The Working Group will also work on the following deliverables:

* An extensible architecture containing a taxonomy, information model, and
overall information flows * A protocol specification describing the validation
and discovery of digital emblems using DNS

As a reminder, the IETF is a contribution-driven organization, with a formal
process defined in RFC 2026 and RFC 8789. There is no membership in the IETF.
Anyone can participate by signing up to a working group mailing list or
registering for an IETF meeting and all IETF participants are considered
volunteers and expected to participate as individuals. Additionally, IETF
Working Group process is defined in RFC 2418. Notably, IETF positions require
community rough consensus with input from Working Groups via process managed by
the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Without a community consensus
process, there is no agreement or concurrence on any topic raised with or to
the IETF. This includes Liaison Statements.

We note the liaison statement highlights two new work items adopted by SG-17
which refer to DIEM (XSTR.diem and XSTR.diem-assets). Both new work items make
reference to addressing gaps or absent use cases.

On XSTR.diem, we note the intention to undertake work to “align the emblem’s
technical design with internationally recognized security standards” as well as
to “address gaps by contributing to complementary Recommendations, coordination
with the foundational work done by the IETF, and the development of a broader
framework for secure global adoption of digital IHL emblems”.

On XSTR.diem-assets, we note the document highlights that the work in the DIEM
Working Group “doesn’t address the OT [Operational Technology] assets use case
and how the Digital Emblems can be used.”

In our understanding, the scope of XSTR.diem-assets includes identifying and
defining additional use cases and requirements for digital emblems and
considering security considerations. This work is within the charter of the
DIEM Working Group. Both XSTR.diem and XSTR.diem-assets must ensure they do not
overlap with the scope of the DIEM Working Group.

We invite contributions from members of your group to our efforts in the
development of DIEM. In particular, if gaps relating to use cases and
requirements are perceived, we encourage contributions related to those aspects
within the DIEM Working Group. The DIEM working group is currently working on a
requirements and use cases document which is approaching consensus and
finalisation. If your requirements are not covered in this document, [3] then
we invite you to contribute your requirements to this document of the DIEM
Working Group.

Further, if there are specific requirements that are required to align the
protocol specification to specific security standards, that should inform the
work of the DIEM Working Group. We invite you to contribute those requirements
now and continue contribution as the work progresses.

There is an opportunity to discuss any feedback year-round on the IETF DIEM
Working Group mailing list, at IETF 126 (19-25 July in Vienna) [4] or IETF 127
(14-20 November in San Francisco) [5], as well as at any interim meetings of
the DIEM working group. Note, as well, that any contribution can be provided on
the mailing list as soon as it is ready.

[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/liaison/2105/
[2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/diem/about/
[3] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-diem-requirements/
[4] https://www.ietf.org/meeting/126/
[5] https://www.ietf.org/meeting/127/