Code change:
6. An entity in the RATS architecture includes at least one of the roles <del> defined in this document.  As a result, the entity can participate as a constituent of the RATS architecture.  Additionally, an entity can aggregate more than one role into itself.  These collapsed roles combine the duties of multiple roles.  In these cases, interaction between these roles do not necessarily use the Internet Protocol. They can be using a loopback device or other IP-based communication between separate environments, but they do not have to.  Alternative channels to convey conceptual messages include function calls, sockets, GPIO interfaces, local busses, or hypervisor calls.  This type of conveyance is typically found in Composite Devices.  Most importantly, these conveyance methods are out-of-scope of RATS, but they are presumed to exist in order to convey conceptual messages appropriately between roles. </del> <ins> defined in this document.  An entity can aggregate more than one role into itself.  These collapsed roles combine the duties of multiple roles. In these cases, interaction between these roles do not necessarily use the Internet Protocol.  They can be using a loopback device or other IP-based communication between separate environments, but they do not have to.  Alternative channels to convey conceptual messages include function calls, sockets, GPIO interfaces, local busses, or hypervisor calls.  This type of conveyance is typically found in Composite Devices.  Most importantly, these conveyance methods are out-of-scope of RATS, but they are presumed to exist in order to convey conceptual messages appropriately between roles. </ins> For example, an entity that both connects to a wide-area network and to a system bus is taking on both the Attester and Verifier roles.

Related discussion:
text: URL Greetings! I got as far as I could with time constraints through the rest of the document. There are a few sections I'll likely go back over again as I was short on time when reviewing them, but do hope this is helpful towards improving the document. This review is from the editors revision on github that I started my review earlier int he week. Section 4.2: I find the following grouping a bit confusing: "Places that Attesting Environments can exist include Trusted Execution Environments (TEE), embedded Secure Elements (eSE), and BIOS firmware." This has an attesting environment as a processor, an element, and as compiled code. That doesn't seem right, especially when you refer to the attesting environment as a "place". Do you mean where BIOS is executed perhaps? I would expect a TEE and maybe other components where security functions are offloaded, which is in some cases to a processor other than a TEE like a GPU (I'm not making a recommendation to do that here, just stating what is happening in ecosystems that exist). The following text is a little confusing, in particular, the last sentence: "An execution environment may not, by default, be capable of claims collection for a given Target Environment. Attesting Environments are designed specifically with claims collection in mind." If the attesting environment is a place, TEEs and other processors were not necessarily designed with claims in mind. If you can help to explain an attesting environment better, I can help to phrase it more clearly to convey the intended set of points as I think there are several. Section 4.3 Consider changing from: "By definition, the Attester role takes on the duty to create Evidence." To: "By definition, the Attester role creates Evidence." The following sentence is a run on and I think some additional information will help provide clarity. I don't think it's the role that is composed of nest environments. Current: "The fact that an Attester role is composed of environments that can be nested or staged adds complexity to the architectural layout of how an Attester can be composed and therefore has to conduct the Claims collection in order to create believable attestation Evidence." How about: "An Attester may be one or more nested or staged environments, adding complexity to the architectural structure.