[Rats] Re: Call for adoption: draft-deshpande-rats-multi-verifier-04 (Ends 2026-04-24)

[Manu Fontaine <[e-mail]>]

I'm not trying to block anything (because I do not have enough bandwidth to
participate actively) but Usama's point is more fundamental than "security
and privacy considerations".

The quality of a relying party trust decision (which includes security and
privacy considerations) collapses rapidly with each additional independent
verifier. Each independent verifier introduces its own trust dependencies.
Just one compromised verifier can compromise the final trust decision.
Trust is not additive; it's a chain only as strong as its weakest link.

The draft correctly states that multiple verifiers are necessary, and must
collaborate, but it doesn't contemplate that the collaboration should
itself be cryptographically verifiable. This is a recursive architecture
challenge, where component verifiers must themselves be verified by a
shared verifier to minimize the degradation of the relying party's trust
decision.

Relying on institutional trust for composition use cases (essentially all
of them from the relying party's perspective) inherently undermines the CC
value proposition.

M


On Thu, Apr 23, 2026 at 6:57 AM Kathleen Moriarty <
[e-mail]> wrote:

> I hadn’t seen this message as I was on vacation.
>
> Usama, security & privacy considerations can be developed in the WG and
> are not blocking.
>
> One person cannot block consensus either or it would lock up work between
> competitors regularly.
>
> The draft will have the consensus marker turned on when the chairs deem it
> appropriate after WGLC. Please be kind to other participants and leave the
> chairs to do their job on consensus decisions.
>
> Best regards,
> Kathleen
>
> Sent from my mobile device
>
> On Apr 22, 2026, at 3:19 PM, Muhammad Usama Sardar <
> [e-mail]> wrote:
>
> 
>
> Hi all,
>
> I didn't notice that this is already ongoing.
>
>
> # *Technical concerns*
> On 17.04.26 16:31, Ned Smith via Datatracker wrote:
>
> Please reply to this message and indicate whether or not you support adoption
> of this Internet-Draft by the rats WG. Comments to explain your preference
> are greatly appreciated.
>
> I *strongly oppose* adoption of this draft -04 in its current form
> because of substantial technical concerns already mentioned several times
> on the list, in the meetings and in my draft [0]. Some recent discussions
> are [1,2] to which no technical response has been provided. IMHO, this
> draft in its current form is doing disservice to the community by not
> properly highlight the security and privacy risks, and by implicitly
> promoting the blind trust in vendors.
>
> Given that neither the draft has addressed these substantial technical
> concerns nor any technical argument has been provided on list, I believe
> the document would benefit from further discussion and revision before
> being considered for adoption. Please let me know if I have missed
> something.
>
>
> # *Procedural concerns*
>
> ## *Repeated misuse of "Consensus"*
>
> I watched the recording of meeting 125. I am deeply concerned about the
> repeated misuse of the word "consensus" in authors' recent presentations of
> this draft, because this has happened repeatedly.
>
> In IETF 123, authors said verbally that "consensus has been reached in a
> side meeting" which is absolutely wrong, because WG business cannot be done
> in side meetings.
>
> Now in IETF 125, authors are saying and even writing in the slides [3]
>
> "consensus reached in IETF 124"
>
> which is not correct because I voted "no" in IETF 124 and even mentioned
> on mic that my concerns should be addressed before adoption. I believe
> claiming "consensus" while my substantial technical concerns remain
> unaddressed undermines the IETF process. I request technical answers to my
> technical concerns before adoption.
>
> ## *Duration of adoption call*
>
> IIUC the chairs said two times adoption call will be for at least 2 weeks
> [4,5] and then Henk asking it again on mic saying "2 or 3 weeks" and chairs
> confirming it [6]. I don't know what changed it to one week, especially
> given the confusion in the other thread about adoption. I would like to
> know if I have missed something.
>
>
> Best,
>
> -Usama
>
>
> [0]
> https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-sardar-rats-sec-cons-02.html#section-8.1
>
> [1]
> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/bL70CcpPS8UwuNbSKygDlMIONdw/
>
> [2]
> https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rats/dsmW2IODYw2886qju1RwQwdUoyA/
>
> [3]
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/125/materials/slides-125-rats-remote-attestation-with-multiple-verifiers-00
>
> [4] https://youtu.be/uNLHwnJRSCI?t=5630
>
> [5] https://youtu.be/uNLHwnJRSCI?t=5652
>
> [6] https://youtu.be/uNLHwnJRSCI?t=5680
>
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