[TLS] Re: [Wimse] Public side meetings on identity crisis in attested TLS for Confidential Computing

[John Kemp <[e-mail]>]

Hi Usama,

The title of this email is quite alarming to me ("identity crisis") and 
yet I'm not able to understand what the actual issue is other than 
someone wishing to replace public-key authentication with "attestation".

Personally, I wouldn't do that.

Although TLS PKI authentication involves a kind of attestation itself (I 
have to trust a CA installed in my trust store, and possibly some 
intermediate CAs too, that have blessed the authenticated key) and only 
good faith and good practices prevent a private key being copied all 
over the place and violating the attestation, I agree with anyone is 
saying that providing attested measurements of a TEE is not the same 
thing as attesting a key within a PKI. They are complementary.

Where is the "identity crisis" exactly?

Cheers, John

El 03/06/25 a las 04:14, Muhammad Usama Sardar escribió:
> (Note for TLS WG only: announcing with approval of chairs [0])
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> *TL;DR*: There will be a couple of /public side meetings/ on attested 
> TLS. For organizational purposes (e.g., to ask for a bigger room 
> [current room capacity: 20]), if you are interested in presenting or 
> attending /in-person/, please drop me a short email. Since some of the 
> attested TLS team members will be remote (and in Europe), we have 
> selected a time slot suitable for them. But if you are really interested 
> and this time does not work for you, please let me know and we will seek 
> alternatives. Also see call for presentations below.
> 
> Date: 17th March (Monday) and 19th March (Wednesday)
> 
> Time: Both meetings at 15:00 - 17:00
> 
> Room: Meeting Room 3
> 
> Relevant for:
> 
>   * *RATS*: Design space to inject remote attestation into transport
>     protocols; and related security considerations
>   * *TLS*: Extension of TLS with remote attestation
>   * *WIMSE*: Identity crisis in confidential computing
> 
> No prior knowledge is assumed but knowledge of TLS will be helpful.
> 
> The current agenda is based on joint works with Arto Niemi, Hannes 
> Tschofenig, Thomas Fossati, Simon Frost, Ned Smith, Mariam Moustafa, 
> Tuomas Aura, Yaron Sheffer, Ionut Mihalcea and Jean-Marie Jacquet.
> 
> *Draft agenda for first side meeting*:
> 
> The first side meeting aims to bring everyone on the same page for 
> discussion of the open questions in the second side meeting. We plan to 
> cover the following topics (subject to changes dependent on the interest 
> and background of attendees):
> 
>   * Network Security (TLS: RFC8446bis [1])
>       o Without client authentication
>       o With client authentication
>   * Endpoint Security (Remote Attestation (RA): including RFC9334 and
>     RFC9683)
>       o Disambiguate attestation and authentication
>   * Attested TLS (RA || TLS) including [4] and [5]
>       o Design Options
>           + Pre-handshake attestation
>           + Intra-handshake attestation
>           + Post-handshake attestation
>       o Protocols
>           + Server as Attester
>           + Client as Attester
> 
> *Draft agenda and call for presentations for second side meeting*:
> 
>   * Technical details of impersonation attacks [6]
>       o Attack1 in [6]
>       o Attack2 in [6]
>   * Proposed solution (Recommendation [6])
>   * Discussion of open questions [6]
>   * Other relevant open questions
> 
> We aim to scope the side meetings to Confidential Computing and welcome 
> presentations around the theme of attacks mentioned here [6] within this 
> scope. If interested, please send me your topic and time estimate until 
> 10th March.
> 
> Additional readings:
> 
>   * Attested TLS [7]
>   * Attestation in Arm CCA and Intel TDX [8]
> 
> 
> We look forward to your perspectives and discussions during the side 
> meetings!
> 
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Usama
> 
> 
> [0] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/RHyArzvEJHimDi49b2bboPAUW_c/
> 
> [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-rfc8446bis/
> 
> [2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc9334/
> 
> [3] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc9683/
> 
> [4] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-fossati-tls-attestation/
> 
> [5] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-fossati-tls-exported-attestation/
> 
> [6] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/tls/Jx_yPoYWMIKaqXmPsytKZBDq23o/
> 
> [7] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10752524
> 
> [8] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10373038
> 
> 

-- 
Independent Security Architect
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e: [e-mail]

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