Draft: draft-ietf-rats-architecture

Commentary: Align Section 8.2 with the definition in Section 4.2 Relax the definition of Endorser in Section 4.1 to drop the exclusive coupling between Endorsements and authenticity appraisal 
 In § 4.2 Endorsement is defined as : " A secure statement that an Endorser vouches for the integrity of an Attester 's various capabilities such as Claims collection and Evidence signing . " uses a more restrictive description : " An Endorsement is a secure statement that some entity ( e.g. , a manufacturer ) vouches for the integrity of the device 's signing capability . " , which seems to limit the scope of an Endorsement to the verification of the Attester 's signature on Evidence . I think § 8.2 should be rephrased to align with § 4.2 so to allow  to be more than just verification keys . Besides , the definition of  in § 4.1 : " [ … ] Endorsements help Verifiers appraise the authenticity of Evidence " could be relaxed to drop the ( seemingly ) exclusive coupling of Endorsements with authenticity appraisal . 
 +1 Re : § 4.1 the alignment of " Endorsements " with " Evidence " seems overly constraining since   are expected to match Evidence while Endorsements are not expected to be compared to Evidence . The wording " authenticity of Evidence " is what  qualify but that is too narrow as it could also appraise other Attesting Environment functionality such as Claims Collection , key generation , signing as well as launching code , transitioning to other environments , storing secrets and there could be more . 
 Huh . I checked both sections and ... I think you both might be right here . While it 's not the intent of Section 8.2 , factually it seems to be artificially constraining ( by accident ? ) . I have to admit , I did not catch that discrepancy . My initial assessment is that - as we took great care with the " normative anchor " that is Section 4.2 - we did not pay enough attention to align Section 8.2 with that . Taking into account and assessment , I think this is an editorial issue . Could please provide a proposal and please review that first , so that we can address this issue along the upcoming next review phase . This action depends on this change remaining to be a editorial harmonization ( again , which I think it is ) . If there are any counter indications that this is bordering on normative impact , please highlight so . 
 " In some cases , an Endorsement is a secure statement that some entity ( e.g. , a manufacturer ) vouches for the integrity of the device 's signing capability . " 
 reads good to me
Paragraph (version A):
A role performed by an entity (typically a manufacturer) whose
Endorsements help Verifiers appraise the authenticity of Evidence.
Paragraph (version B):
A role performed by an entity (typically a manufacturer) whose
Endorsements may help Verifiers appraise the authenticity of
Evidence and infer further capabilities of the Attester.
Paragraph (version A):
An Endorsement is a secure statement that some entity (e.g., a
manufacturer) vouches for the integrity of the device's signing
capability.  For example, if the signing capability is in hardware,
then an Endorsement might be a manufacturer certificate that signs a
public key whose corresponding private key is only known inside the
device's hardware.  Thus, when Evidence and such an Endorsement are
used together, an appraisal procedure can be conducted based on
appraisal policies that may not be specific to the device instance,
but merely specific to the manufacturer providing the Endorsement.
For example, an appraisal policy might simply check that devices from
a given manufacturer have information matching a set of Reference
Values, or an appraisal policy might have a set of more complex logic
on how to appraise the validity of information.
Paragraph (version B):
An Endorsement is a secure statement that some entity (e.g., a
manufacturer) vouches for the integrity of the device's various
capabilities such as claims collection, signing, launching code,
transitioning to other environments, storing secrets, and more.  For
example, if the device's signing capability is in hardware, then an
Endorsement might be a manufacturer certificate that signs a public
key whose corresponding private key is only known inside the device's
hardware.  Thus, when Evidence and such an Endorsement are used
together, an appraisal procedure can be conducted based on appraisal
policies that may not be specific to the device instance, but merely
specific to the manufacturer providing the Endorsement.  For example,
an appraisal policy might simply check that devices from a given
manufacturer have information matching a set of Reference Values, or
an appraisal policy might have a set of more complex logic on how to
appraise the validity of information.