SATP

IETF 119 - SATP Working Group Session

Summary

The SATP working group met to review updates to the core protocol specifications following Area Director (AD) review, discuss the proposed new charter, and explore the architecture for "Stage-0" (the pre-setup phase). The group has successfully progressed its initial documents through the first stage of AD review. Key technical discussions focused on JSON canonicalization, error code granularity, and the requirements for long-term persistence in asset registries.

Key Discussion Points

Updates on the Core Documents since AD Review

Thomas Hardjono presented updates to the core specifications based on feedback from outgoing AD Ori Steele. Presentation: Updates on the core documents since AD review

Cryptographic Standards: The group decided to mandate TLS 1.3 and remove references to TLS 1.2 to ensure high security for financial institutional use cases.
Protocol Simplification: The three-phase commit (3PC) option was removed in favor of a strict Two-Phase Commit (2PC) to reduce complexity, though the architecture allows for future extensions.
JSON Serialization and Canonicalization: Ori Steele raised concerns regarding the representation of public keys and the consistency of JSON hashing for signatures.
- The group discussed using JSON Canonicalization Scheme (JCS) or JOSE-style base64 armoring.
- Thomas Hardjono noted that while hex was used in examples for brevity, the specification will require proper key objects.
- Dennis G. noted that their implementation currently uses JCS. Andy Bierman cautioned that referencing JCS might result in a "downref" during IESG review.
Error Handling: Ori Steele questioned the high granularity of error codes for identifiers. Thomas Hardjono explained these are intended to support future session resumption and crash recovery features. Andy Bierman suggested ensuring alignment with BCP 56 regarding HTTP status code usage.
Use Cases and Terminology: Rama Ramakrishnan confirmed updates to draft-ietf-satp-use-cases to replace specific company names and non-standard TLDs with .example domains.

Charter Discussion

Wes Hardaker and Claire Farrow lead the discussion on the revised charter. Presentation: Chair Slides

The charter has been refined to narrow the scope to five or six clear next goals.
Incoming AD Andy Bierman noted that rechartering will likely be synchronized with the current documents reaching the IESG ballot stage.
Ori Steele recommended coordination with the Registration Extensions (regext) WG regarding the EPP-related use cases in draft-ietf-satp-use-cases.
Wes Hardaker noted potential overlaps with work in the SPICE, SKITT, and ATP (Authenticated Transfer Protocol) groups.

SATP Stage-0 Architecture

Thomas Hardjono introduced the concepts for the "Stage-0" setup phase, which precedes the SATP core protocol. Presentation: SATP Stage-0 Architecture

Problem Areas: Stage-0 addresses pre-transfer context establishment, asset legitimacy verification, and artifact discovery.
Artifact Registry: A central concept is a registry for off-chain metadata (legal documents, profiles). Requirements include append-only logging and "50-year persistence" to meet financial regulatory standards.
Discovery and Naming: Ori Steele suggested utilizing the DNS for discovery and naming rather than building a new specialized registry system. Thomas Hardjono argued that while DNS is good for discovery, the persistence requirements of financial assets might require a system more like those discussed in the SKITT WG.
Consistency: Dennis G. emphasized the need for consistency between off-chain and on-chain asset records through a "Tokenized Asset Record" (TAR).

Decisions and Action Items

Decision: Standardize on TLS 1.3 exclusively for the protocol.
Decision: Revert to a strict 2PC model in draft-ietf-satp-core and draft-ietf-satp-architecture.
Action Item: Thomas Hardjono to review and select a JSON canonicalization method (likely JCS) for the next draft revision.
Action Item: Wes Hardaker to coordinate a review of the Use Cases document with the Chairs of the RegExt WG.
Action Item: Authors to ensure all company names are removed from examples in favor of proper example identifiers (e.g., alice.example).

Next Steps

Document Updates: Authors will submit revised versions of draft-ietf-satp-core, draft-ietf-satp-architecture, and draft-ietf-satp-use-cases to address AD review comments.
AD Review: Andy Bierman will perform a subsequent review of the core documents and the proposed charter.
Future Work: The group will continue defining the requirements for the Artifact Registry as part of the upcoming charter cycle.

Automatic IETF Minutes