Re: [Tm-rid] Draft charter

[Robert Moskowitz <[e-mail]>]

Updated charter:

Governmental agencies worldwide, including the United States Federal 
Aviation Administration (FAA), are embarking on rule making processes to 
define Remote Identification (RID) requirements for Unmanned Aircraft 
Systems (UAS). ASTM International (formerly the American Society for 
Testing and Materials) F38 Committee Work Item WK65041, “Standard 
Specification for UAS Remote ID and Tracking”, addresses such 
anticipated requirements. Broadcast RID defines a set of messages for 
UAS to send one-way over Bluetooth or IEEE 802.11. Network RID defines 
how the same information (and potentially more) can be made available 
via the Internet. The ASTM draft does not address how to ensure or at 
least assess trustworthiness of information communicated via RID.


The Host Identity Protocol (HIP) Host Identity Tag (HIT) is ideally 
suited to work within this RID effort. For each Unmanned Aircraft (UA), 
a HIT can consolidate the 4-tuple of (UA ID, UA physical location, UA 
onboard host ID, UA onboard host logical location [IP address list]) to 
a 3-tuple (HIT, UA physical location, UA onboard host logical location) 
and thereby provide significant benefits.


For HIP to be used effectively in this environment, it needs updates.


- Hierarchical HITs (HHIT) enabling scalable and trustable registration: 
HHIT was part of the original design of HIP, but was dropped for lack of 
a clear use case. RID messages containing HHITs will enable use of DNS 
to access information about the UAS.


- expanded HIP Registration for HHITs: This registration process will 
provide proof of authenticity and prevent duplicate HHITs from 
occurring. Further, these Registries will provide the UAS DNS 
information and other services (including support of RVS for Network RID 
and related applications).


- new cryptographic algorithms: Extremely compact keys and signatures 
(such as are enabled by EdDSA and Keccak functions) are needed to meet 
the severely constrained UAS environment.


Additionally, tm-rid will offer specifications for HIP-augmented ASTM 
RID messages. Initially this will consist of additional RID 
Authentication Messages that use the HI in public key signing 
operations: to prove UAS ownership of the HHIT; to authenticate other 
claims made via RID, such as position and velocity, as having been made 
by the owner of that HHIT; and to provide observers lacking current 
Internet connectivity with locally verifiable UAS proof-of-registration 
objects.


Further work will emerge as experience is gained in using HIP for UAS 
RID. For example, some UAS Traffic Management (UTM) systems envision 
using OAuth for Ground Control Systems (GCS) and authorized safety 
personnel. HIP as an OAuth method may help in merging HIP into these 
systems.


The goal is to complete these updates to HIP by the end of 2020.