Internet Engineering Task Force T. Hardjono Internet-Draft MIT Intended status: Informational M. Hargreaves Expires: 21 June 2025 Quant Network N. Smith Intel V. Ramakrishna IBM 18 December 2024 Secure Asset Transfer (SAT) Interoperability Architecture draft-ietf-satp-architecture-06 Abstract This document proposes an interoperability architecture for the secure transfer of assets between two networks or systems based on the gateway model. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on 21 June 2025. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 1] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/ license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Assumptions and Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.1. Design Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.2. Operational Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.3. Assumptions Regarding Gateway Operators . . . . . . . . . 6 4. Gateway Interoperability Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5. Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5.1. Goal of Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5.2. Overview of Asset Transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 5.3. Desirable Properties of Asset Transfer . . . . . . . . . 9 5.4. Event log-data, crash recovery and backup gateways . . . 11 5.5. Overview of the Stages in Asset Transfer . . . . . . . . 11 6. Pre-transfer Verification and Context Establishment (Stage-0) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 7. Transfer Initiation and Commencement (Stage-1) . . . . . . . 15 8. Asset Lock Assertion and Receipt (Stage 2) . . . . . . . . . 16 9. Commitment Preparation and Finalization (Stage 3) . . . . . . 18 10. The Commitment sub-protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 12. Policy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 13. Threat Analysis Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 13.1. Multiple intentional aborts by the sender gateway . . . 22 13.2. Multiple intentional aborts by the receiver gateway . . 22 13.3. Failure to transmit ACK-Final Receipt . . . . . . . . . 23 13.4. Failure to extinguish asset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 13.5. Identity impersonations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 14. Compatibility Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 15. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 15.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 15.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Appendix A. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 2] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 1. Introduction This document proposes an interoperability architecture based on gateways, which are points of interconnection between networks or systems. There are several services that may be offered by a gateway, one of which being the direct transfer of a digital asset from one network to another via pairs of gateways without a mediating third party. A given network or system may have one or more gateways to perform a unidirectional direct transfer of digital assets to another network possessing one or more compatible gateway. The peer gateways must implement a secure asset transfer protocol that must satisfy certain security, privacy, atomicity and liveliness requirements. The purpose of this architecture document is to provide technical framework within which to define the required properties of a gateway that supports the secure asset transfer protocol. 2. Terminology The current architecture specification borrows existing terminology from NIST and ISO. New terms have been introduced notably in relation to the use of the gateways paradigm and commitment subprotocols. * Asset network (system): The network or system where a digital asset is utilized. * Asset Transfer Protocol: The protocol used to transfer (move) a digital asset from one network to another using gateways. * Origin network: The current asset network where the digital asset is located. * Destination network: The asset network to which a digital asset is to be transferred. * Resource Domain: The collection of resources and entities participating within an asset network. The domain denotes a boundary for permissible or authorized actions on resources. * Interior Resources: The various interior protocols, data structures and cryptographic constructs that are a core part of an asset network or system. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 3] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 * Exterior Resources: The various protocols, data structures and cryptographic constructs that are outside of (external to) the network or system. * Gateway: The collection of services which connects to a minimum of one network or system, and which implements the secure asset transfer protocol. * Entity public-key pair: This the private-public key pairs of an entity, where the public-key is available and verifiable outside the network. Among others, it may be utilized for interactions other entities (e.g. sign messages) from outside the network. The term is used to distinguish this public-key from other key-pairs belonging to the same entity, but which is only available within the (private) network. * Originator: Person or organization in an origin network seeking the transfer of a digital asset to a beneficiary located in a remote network. * Beneficiary: Person or organization in an destination network seeking to receive the transfer of a digital asset to from an originator located in a remote network. * Gateway device identity: The identity of the device implementing the gateway functions. The term is used in the sense of the DevID (IEEE 802.1AR) [DevID] or the EK/AIK keys (in TPM1.2 and TPM2.0) [TPMdevID]. * Gateway owner: The entity that owns and operates a gateway within a network. * Application Context-ID: The relevant identifier used by originator's application and the beneficiary's application to identify the context of the asset transfer at the gateway level. The context identifier may also be used to bind the application to selected gateway for the given transfer instance, identified by a Session-ID. * Gateway Session-ID: This is the identifier used between the sender gateway G1 and the recipient gateway G2 to identify the specific transfer instance between them. The Session-ID must be included in all messages between the peer gateways. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 4] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 3. Assumptions and Principles The following assumptions and principles underlie the design of the current gateway architecture, and correspond to the design principles of the Internet architecture. 3.1. Design Principles * Opaque network resources: The interior resources of each network is assumed to be opaque to (hidden from) external entities. Any resources to be made accessible to an external entity must be made explicitly accessible by a gateway with proper authorization. * Externalization of value: The asset transfer protocol is agnostic (oblivious) to the economic or monetary value (if any) of the digital asset being transferred. The opaque resources principle permits the architecture to be applied in cases where one (or both) networks are private (closed membership). It is the analog of the autonomous systems principle in IP networking [Clar88], where interior routes in local subnets are not visible to other external networks. The value-externalization principle permits an asset transfer protocol to be designed for efficiency, security and reliability -- independent of the changes in the perceived economic value of the digital asset. It is the analog of the end-to-end principle in the Internet architecture [SRC84], where contextual information is placed at the endpoints of the transfer. 3.2. Operational Assumptions The following conditions are assumed to have occurred, leading to the invocation of the asset transfer protocol between two gateways: * Application level context establishment: The transfer request from an Originator utilizing an application (App1) in the origin network is assumed to have occurred, and that some context- identifier has subsequently been derived by the respective applications (App1 and App2). Furthermore, this context- identifier is assumed to have been delivered by the each application to its corresponding gateway, permitting each gateway to internally bind the transfer session-identifier to that context-identifier. * Identification of asset to be transferred: The applications at the originator and the beneficiary are assumed to have identified the digital asset to be transferred. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 5] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 * Identification of originator and beneficiary: The originator and beneficiary are assumed to have been identified and that consent has been obtained from both parties regarding the asset transfer. * Identification of origin and destination asset networks: The origin and destination networks is assumed to have been identified. * Selection of gateway: The two corresponding gateways at the origin and destination networks is assumed to have been identified and selected. 3.3. Assumptions Regarding Gateway Operators The following conditions are assumed to have occurred, leading to the invocation of the asset transfer protocol between two gateways: * Identification of gateway-owners: The owners of the two corresponding gateways are assumed to have been identified and their ownership status verified. * Gateway liabilities: Gateways and gateway-operators are assumed to take on legal and financial liability for their transactions, and gateways are assumed to operate under a well-defined legal framework (e.g. contractual relationship). Furthermore, the legal framework is assumed to be supported by compatible legislation in the relevant jurisdictions where the gateways are operating. * Gateway message signatures: All messages between gateways are assumed to be signed and verified (e.g. X.509). * Transitory control of asset by gateway: An asset being transferred via SAT will technically be controlled by gateway throughout the transfer duration to ensure the state of the asset is not modified by another entity. Gateway owners are liable for the asset throughout this duration. * Network data: Gateways are assumed to have mechanisms in place to trust data returned from their local networks. This will depend on the technical architecture and capabilities of each specific network. * Gateways are trusted: The gateways are assumed to be trusted to carry-out all the stages of the protocol described in this architecture. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 6] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 4. Gateway Interoperability Modes The current interoperability architecture based on gateways recognizes several types of transfer flows: * Asset transfer: This refers to the transfer of a digital asset from the origin network to a destination network, where a successful asset transfer causes the asset to be extinguished (burned) in the origin network and be regenerated (minted) at the destination network. * Data transfer: This refers to the transfer of data only under authorization, in such a way that the data can be verified by a third party. The data transfer mode addresses the use-cases where the state update in one network or system depends on the existence of state information recorded in a different network or system. * Asset exchange (swap): This refers to the case where two users are present in two networks, and they perform concurrent and atomic swaps of two assets in the two corresponding networks, without transferring the assets outside (i.e. across) the networks. The gateways aid in coordinating the messages pertaining to the swap. The remainder of this architecture document will focus on the asset transfer flows. 5. Architecture 5.1. Goal of Architecture The goal of the interoperability architecture is to permit two (2) gateways belonging to distinct networks to conduct a transfer of digital assets transfer between them, in a secure, atomic and verifiable manner. The asset as understood by the two gateways is expressed in an standard digital format in a way meaningful to the gateway syntactically and semantically. The architecture recognizes that there are different networks currently in operation and evolving, and that in many cases the interior technical constructs in these networks maybe incompatible with one another. The architecture therefore assumes that in addition to implementing the bilateral secure asset transfer protocol, a gateway has the role of making opaque (i.e. hiding) the constructs that are local and specific to its network. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 7] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 Overall this approach ensures a high degree of interoperability across these networks, where each network can operate as a true autonomous system. Additionally, this approach permits each network to evolve its interior technology implementations without affecting other (external) networks. The current architecture focuses on unidirectional asset transfers, although the building blocks in this architecture can be used to support protocols for bidirectional transfers. For simplicity the current architecture employs two (2) gateways per transfer as the basic building block, with one gateway in the origin and destination networks respectively. However, the architecture seeks to be extensible to address future cases involving multiple gateways at both sides. The abstract construct of the gateway is used to represent endpoints that implement the asset transfer protocol interactions and the business logic that coordinates the transfer protocol steps until completion satisfying the ACID properties and ensuring liveliness of the protocol interactions. In classical distributed databases, this business logic is often referred to as the transaction manager or the transaction coordinator. This architecture specification does not prescribe any implementations of gateways. 5.2. Overview of Asset Transfer An asset transfer between two networks is performed using a secure asset transfer protocol implemented by the gateways in the respective networks. The two gateways implement the protocol in a direct interaction (unmediated). A successful transfer results in the asset being extinguished (burned) at the origin network, and for the asset to be regenerated (minted) at the destination network. The secure asset transfer protocol provides a coordination between the two gateways through the various message flows in the protocol that is communicated over a secure channel. The protocol implements a commitment mechanism between the two gateways to ensure that the relevant properties atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID) are achieved in the transfer. The mechanism to extinguish (burn) or regenerate (mint) an asset from/into a network by its gateway is dependent on the specific network and is outside the scope of the current architecture Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 8] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 specification. The mechanisms used to provide cryptographic proofs that an asset has been burned or minted in a given network is also out of scope. As part of the commitment mechanism, the sender gateway in the origin network must deliver a signed assertion to the receiver gateway at the destination network which states that asset in question has been extinguished (burned) from the origin network. Similarly, the receiver gateway at the destination network must in return deliver a signed assertion to the sender gateway at the origin network which states that the asset has been regenerated (minted) in the destination network. These two tasks must be performed in a synchronized fashion between the two gateways, and the commitment mechanism must provide sufficient evidence of the asset transfer that is verifiable by an authorized third party. 5.3. Desirable Properties of Asset Transfer The desirable features of asset transfers between two gateways include, but not limited, to the following: * Atomicity: A transfer must either commit or entirely fail (failure means no change to asset state). * Consistency: A transfer (commit or fail) always leaves the networks in a consistent state (i.e. the asset is located in one network only at any time). * Isolation: While the transfer is occurring, the asset state cannot be modified in the origin network. * Durability: Once a transfer has been committed by both gateways, it must remain so regardless of subsequent gateway crashes. * Liveliness and safety: The asset transfer protocol results in both gateways reaching a non-blocking state (commits or aborts) satisfying the above ACID properties. * Verifiable by authorized third parties: The proof that the asset has been extinguished in the origin network, and the proof that the asset has been generated in the destination network must be verifiable by an authorized third party. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 9] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 An implementation of the asset transfer protocol should satisfy these properties, independent of whether the implementation employs stateful messaging or stateless messaging between the two gateways. Performing an asset transfer safely and securely is not simply a matter of communicating desire or intent between two systems represented by gateways, though such communication is a necessary part of asset transfer. The systems, or at least their gateway proxies, must be interoperable in order to transfer assets among themselves, but such interoperability imposes strictly more demands on systems managing digital assets, especially systems that are built on distributed ledgers, compared to conventional communication interoperability. Communication interoperability, which is concerned with syntax and semantics of information geared towards producing a common understanding (or knowledge reconciliation) among systems, is insufficient to fulfill an asset transfer that requires systems to carry out state updates in concert with each other. But communication, or messaging standards, play a necessary and complementary role to asset transfer protocols. An exemplar of this is ISO 20022, which is a comprehensive global standard for financial messaging that specifies message syntax for common actions occurring in financial business processes, including payments, credit card transactions, securities settlements, funds, and trade [ISO20022]. This standard provides the tools to model business processes from basic logical building blocks and schemas to construct messages using common formats like XML, JSON, and ASN.1. As discussed later, such messaging standards are useful to communicate information about the states of processes and digital assets across systems, to make requests, and to convey intent. They therefore play a necessary and complementary role in asset transfer protocols. However they are by themselves insufficient to ensure the ACID and verifiability properties described earlier. Another way to think about the relationship between messaging standards like ISO 20022 and asset transfer protocols is that the former is concerned with the "what" of cross-system interoperability whereas the latter is concerned with the "how". Both kinds of protocols treat systems as black boxes, but asset transfer protocols must place some responsibility, and depend, on systems to drive a protocol instance to successful conclusion. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 10] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 5.4. Event log-data, crash recovery and backup gateways Implementations of a gateway should maintain event logs and checkpoints for the purpose of gateway crash recovery. The log-data generated by a gateway should be considered as an interior resource accessible to other authorized gateways within the same network. The mechanism used to provide gateway crash-recovery is dependent on the specific network. For interoperability purposes the information contained in the log and the format of the log-data should be standardized. The resumption of an interrupted transfer session (e.g. due to gateway crash, network failure, etc.) should take into consideration the aspects of secure channel establishment and the aspects of the transfer protocol resumption. In some cases, a new secure channel (e.g. TLS session) may need to be established between the two gateways, before a resumption of the transfer can begin. The log-data collected by a gateway acts also as a checkpoint mechanism to assist the recovered (or backup) gateway in continuing the transfer. The point at which to re-start the transfer protocol flow is dependent on the implementation of the gateway recovery strategy. 5.5. Overview of the Stages in Asset Transfer The interaction between two gateways in the secure asset transfer protocol is summarized in Figure 1, where the origin network is NW1 and the destination network is NW2. The gateways are denoted as G1 and G2 respectively. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 11] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 Originator Beneficiary | | +-------------+ +-------------+ | Client | | Client | | Application | | Application | | (App1) | | (App2) | +-------------+ +-------------+ | | | | |-----------+ +-----------| | | |<--(Stage 0)-->| | | V | | | | V +-------------+ V | | V +-------------+ | Network | +----+<-- Stage 1 -->+----+ | Network | | NW1 | |Gate| |Gate| | NW2 | | |--|way | |way |--| | | +---------+ | | G1 |<-- Stage 2 -->| G2 | | +---------+ | | | State | | +----+ +----+ | | State | | | | Data DB1| | | | | | Data DB2| | | +---------+ | |<-- Stage 3--->| | +---------+ | +-------------+ +-------------+ Figure 1 The stages are summarized as follows. * Stage 0: Pre-transfer Verification and Context Establishment. The two applications utilized by the originator and beneficiary are assumed to interact as part of the asset transfer. In this stage, the applications App1 and App2 may establish some shared transfer context information (e.g. Context-ID) at the application level that will be made available to their respective gateways G1 and G2. The legal verification of the identities of the Originator and Beneficiary may occur in this stages [FATF]. This stage is outside the scope of the current architecture specification. * Stage 1: Transfer Initiation and Commencement. In this stage gateways G1 and G2 must exchange information (claims) regarding the asset to be transferred, the identity information of the Originator and Beneficiary and other information regarding relevant actors (e.g. gateway owner/operator). The main task in this stage is for both gateways to finalize the parameters previously negotiated in Stage 0 and to agree to commence the transfer. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 12] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 * Stage 2: Lock Assertion and Receipt. In this stage, gateway G1 must provide gateway G2 with a signed assertion that the asset in NW1 has been immobilized and under the control on G1. A signed assertion is needed because NW1 may be a private or closed network, and therefore the state-database (ledger) in NW1 is not readable by external entities including by G2. This means that gateway G1 must make an explicit signed assertion about the state in NW1. Note that the owner/operator of G1 takes on liability in signing this assertion. * Stage 3: Commitment Preparation and Finalization. In this stage gateways G1 and G2 commit to the unidirectional asset transfer using a 3PC (3-phase commit) subprotocol. These stages will be further discussed below. 6. Pre-transfer Verification and Context Establishment (Stage-0) Although Stage 0 is out of scope for the current architecture, it is discussed here in order to provide background with the regards to the various asset verification requirements prior to commencing the transfer in Stage 1. Several tasks need to be conducted as part of the pre-transfer: * Application level ContextID establishment: The application (App1) used by the originator and the application (App2) used by the beneficiary may need to establish a transfer context identifier (contextID) to uniquely identity the transfer at the application level. * Identification of the asset in the origin network: The specific asset in the origin network NW1 must be located and identified, and its legal ownership be verified by gateway G1. A gateway should not transfer assets whose ownership is unverified. An asset may be identified by way of a combination of the network- identifier and a cryptographic hash of the ledger data representing the asset. Other syntax may also be used, such as [ISO20022] or ITIN [ITIN]. * Verification of the class or type of asset: The receiving gateway G2 may need to verify the class or type of asset that is to be transferred by gateway G1 in network NW1. This is to ensure that the asset type/class conforms to the governing policies in the destination network NW2. Additionally, gateway G2 must ensure that network NW2 can technologically receive (mint) the asset of that given type/class. Asset schema definitions and asset profiles may assist in this verification process. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 13] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 * Validation of asset ownership status: The gateway G1 in the origin network NW1 must ensure that an asset to be transferred to an external network is legally owned by the originator who is requesting the transfer. * Authorization to transfer: The gateway G1 must obtain authorization from the owner of the asset (originator) to perform the transfer to the beneficiary in network NW2. Similarly, the gateway G2 serving network NW2 must obtain authorization from the beneficiary to receive the transfer and assign the asset to the beneficiary in NW2. * Exchange of Travel Rule information and validation: In jurisdictions where the Travel Rule policies regarding originator and beneficiary information is enforced [FATF], the owners of gateways G1 and G2 must comply to the Travel Rule. Mechanisms must be used to permit gateways G1 and G2 to make available originator/beneficiary information to one another in such a away that the Travel Rule information can be logged as part of the asset transfer history. * Validation of the gateway ownership: There must be a means for gateway G1 and G2 to verify their respective ownerships (i.e. entities owning G1 and G2 respectively). Examples of ownership verification mechanism include X.509 certificates, directories of gateways and owners, and others. * Mutual device attestations: In cases where device attestation [RATS] is required, each gateway must yield attestation evidence to the other regarding its configuration. A gateway may take on the role as a attestation verifier, or it may rely on an external verifier to appraise the received evidence. * Negotiation of transfer protocol and network parameters: Gateway G1 and G2 must agree on the parameters to be employed within the asset transfer protocol. Examples include endpoints definitions for resources, duration of time-outs of messages, type of commitment flows (e.g. 2PC or 3PC), signature algorithms, average lock-time durations in their respective networks, and others. The current specification seeks to reuse as much as possible the existing standards related to digital assets. We seek to rely on existing messaging standards like ISO 20022 [ISO20022] or ITIN [ITIN] for gateway ownership validation, owner status validation, asset profile identification, and communication of travel rule and transfer context information. For identification of digital assets maintained by distributed ledgers or blockchain systems, we can also rely on standards like ITIN [ITIN]. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 14] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 7. Transfer Initiation and Commencement (Stage-1) In Stage 1 the sender gateway (G1) and the receiver gateway (G2) must explicitly accept the parameters of the transfer which were negotiated in the pre-transfer stage (Stage 0). This explicit acceptance of the parameters takes the form of gateway G1 sending a signed Transfer Proposal message containing a Transfer Initiation Claims set (namely the parameters agreed upon in Stage 0), and for the gateway G2 to respond with a signed Proposal Receipt message which carries a hash of the proposal message. App1 DB1 G1 G2 DB2 App2 | | | | | | | | | (Stage 0) | | | | | | | | | |<------------ (transfer context establishment) ------------>| | | | | | | |---request------->| |<------request----| | | | | | | | | |<-Param Negotiation-->| | | | | | | | | ..|.....|............|......................|............|.....|.. | | | Stage 1 | | | | | | | | | | | (1.1)|---Transf. Proposal-->| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | (1.2)|<--Proposal Receipt---| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | (1.3)|---Transf. Commence-->| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | (1.4)|<--- ACK Commence ----| | | | | | | | | ..|.....|............|......................|............|.....|.. | | | | | | Figure 2 There are several steps that may occur in Stage 1: Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 15] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 * Secure channel establishment between G1 and G2: This includes the mutual verification of the gateway device identities and the exchange of the relevant parameters for secure channel establishment. * Transfer Proposal message (1.1): Gateway G1 sends a signed transfer proposal message that contains the Transfer Initiation Claims to gateway G2. The claims carry the parameters negotiated in Stage 0 (pre-transfer negotiations). * Proposal Receipt (1.2): The gateway G2 indicates acceptance of the parameters in the Transfer Initiation Claims by way of sending a signed Proposal Receipt message to G1. If gateway G2 decides not to accept parameters in the Transfer Initiation Claims, then G2 can send an abort message to G1 ignore the message (time-out). * Transfer Commence message (1.3): Once gateway G1 receives the signed Proposal Receipt from gateway G2, gateway G1 is ready to signal the commencement of the asset transfer. This is done by gateway G1 sending a signed Transfer Commence message to G2. * Commence Acknowledgement message (1.4): Gateway G2 accepts the formal commencement of the transfer by responding with a signed Commence ACK message. It is important to note the logical separation between the transfer proposal/receipt messages from the commencement messages. This separation allows the gateways to decline to proceed during the proposal finalization (1.1 and 1.2), prior to starting the 2PC subprotocol which formally begins at the Commence messages (1.3 and 1.4). This logical separation is useful because in some implementations the decision to start the commencement (1.3 and 1.4) implies that the gateways and network have sufficient resource to complete the transfer. Gateways that experience extreme loads may use this separation to slightly delay the commencement until their loads subsides. Note that some implementations may choose to enable a multi-round interactions for steps 1.1 and 1.2. 8. Asset Lock Assertion and Receipt (Stage 2) In this stage, gateway G1 must issue a signed assertion that the asset in origin network NW1 has been immobilized and under the control of G1. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 16] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 The steps of Stage 2 are summarized in Figure 4, and broadly consists of the following: * G1 lock/escrow asset (2.1): Gateway G1 proceeds to establish a lock or escrow the asset belonging to the originator. This prevents other local transactions in NW1 from changing the state of the asset until such time the lock by G1 is finalized or released. A time-lock or escrow may also be employed. * Lock Assertion (2.2): Gateway G1 sends a digitally signed assertion regarding the locked (escrowed or immobilized) state on the asset in network NW1. The signature by G1 is performed using its entity public-key pair. This signature signifies that G1 (i.e. its owner/operator) is legally standing behind its statement regarding the locked/escrowed state on the asset. The mechanism to lock or immobilize the asset is outside the scope of secure asset transfer protocol. * G2 Logs lock-assertion information (2.3): Gateway G2 logs/records a copy of the signed lock-assertion message received in Step 2.4 to its local state data DB2. G2 may also notify the fact of the lock-assertion to all members of network NW2. The mechanism to log and to notify is also out of scope. * Lock-Assertion Receipt (2.4): If gateway G2 accepts the signed assertion from G1, then G2 responds with a digitally signed receipt message which includes a hash of the previous lock- assertion message. The signature by G2 is performed using its entity public-key pair. Otherwise, if G2 declines accepting the assertion then G2 can simply ignore the transfer and let the session time-out (i.e. transfer attempt has failed). Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 17] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 Orig DB1 G1 G2 DB2 Benef | | | (Stage 1) | | | | | | | | | ..|.....|............|....................|..............|.....|.. | | | Stage 2 | | | | | | | | | | |<---Lock----|(2.1) | | | | | | | | | | | (2.2)|--Lock-Assertion--->| | | | | | | | | | | | (2.3)|---Record---->| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |<-----Receipt-------|(2.4) | | | | | | | | ..|.....|............|....................|..............|.....|.. | | | | | | Figure 3 The purpose of the signed lock-assertion is for dispute resolution between G1 and G2 (i.e. the entities who own and operate G1 and G2 respectively) in the case that asset state inconsistencies in NW1 and NW2 are discovered later. The gateway G2 must return a digitally signed receipt to G1 regarding the earlier signed lock-assertion in order to cover G1 (exculpatory proof) in the case of later denial by G2. 9. Commitment Preparation and Finalization (Stage 3) In Stage 3 the gateways G1 and G2 commit to the asset transfer by making permanent the changes they made to the respective networks (ledgers). The previous signed receipt message (2.4) from gateway G2 to gateway G1 signals the start of the commitment subprotocol in Stage 3. Upon receiving the signed receipt message from G2 in the previous stage, G1 begins the commitment (see Figure 5): * Commit-prepare (3.1): Gateway G1 indicates to G2 to prepare for the commitment of the transfer. This message should include hashes of the previous messages (message 2.2 and 2.4). Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 18] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 * Temporary asset mint (3.2): Gateway G2 creates (mints) an equivalent asset in NW2 assigned to itself as the owner. This step can be reversed (i.e. asset destroyed) in the case of the failure in the commitment steps because G2 is still the owner of the asset in NW2. * Commit-ready (3.3): Gateway G2 sends a commit-ready message to G1 indicating that it is ready to carry-out the last steps of the commitment subprotocol. Note that that the entire asset transfer session can be aborted before this step without affecting the asset state in the respective networks. * Asset burn (3.4): Gateway G1 extinguishes (burns) the asset in network NW1 which it has locked since Step 2.3. * Commit-final assertion (3.5): Gateway G1 indicates to G2 that G1 has performed the extinguishment of the asset in NW1. This message must be digitally signed by G1. * Asset-assignment (3.6): Gateway G2 assigns the minted asset (which it has been self-holding since Step 3.2) to the Beneficiary. * ACK-final receipt (3.7): Gateway G2 sends a signed assertion that it has assigned the asset to the intended Beneficiary. * Record receipt (3.8): Gateway G1 logs/records a copy of the signed receipt message to its local state data DB1. G1 may also notify the fact of the signed receipt to all members of network NW1. The mechanism to log and notify is out of scope. * Transfer complete (3.9): Gateway G1 must explicitly close the asset transfer session with gateway G2. This allows both sides to close down the secure channel established earlier in Stage 1. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 19] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 Orig DB1 G1 G2 DB2 Benef | | | (Stage 2) | | | | | | | | | ..|.....|.............|....................|............|.....|.. | | | Stage 3 | | | | | | | | | | | (3.1)|--Commit Prepare--->| | | | | | | | | | | | (3.2)|----Mint--->| | | | | | | | | | |<--Commit Ready ----|(3.3) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |<---Burn-----|(3.4) | | | | | | | | | | | (3.5)|-Commit Final Asrt->| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | (3.6)|---Assign-->| | | | | | | | | | |<-----ACK Final-----|(3.7) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |<---Record---|(3.8) | | | | | | | | | | | (3.9)|-----Completed----->| | | | | | | | | ..|.....|.............|....................|............|.....|.. | | | | | | Figure 4 10. The Commitment sub-protocol Within Stage 3, the gateways must implement one (or more) transactional commitment sub-protocols that permit the coordination between two gateways, and the final commitment of the asset transfer. In the case that there are multiple commitment subprotocols supported by the gateways, the choice of the sub-protocol (type/version) and the corresponding commitment evidence must be negotiated between the gateways during Stage 0. For example, in Stage 2 and Stage 3 discussed above the gateways G1 and G2 may implement the classic 2-Phase or 3-Phase Commit (2PC or 3PC) sub-protocol [Gray81] as a means to ensure efficient and non- disputable commitments to the asset transfer. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 20] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 Historically, transactional commitment protocols employ locking mechanisms to prevent update conflicts on the data item in question. When used within the context of digital asset transfers across networks, the fact that an asset has been locked in NW1 must be communicated via an assertion to G2 (as the 3PC participant) in an indisputable manner. Similarly, G2 must return a signed assertion to G1 that the asset has been regenerated (minted) in NW2. These signed assertions must be verifiable by an authorized third party, in the case that disputes occur (post event) or where legal audit is required on the asset transfer. The precise form of these assertions must be standardized (for the given transactional commitment protocol) to eliminate any ambiguity. 11. Security Considerations As an asset network holds an increasing number of digital assets, it may become attractive to attackers seeking to compromise the cryptographic keys of the entities, services and its end-users. Gateways are of particular interest to attackers because they enable the transferal of digital assets to external networks, which may or may not be regulated. As such, hardening technologies and tamper- resistant crypto-processors (e.g. TPM, SGX) should be used for implementations of gateways [HS19]. 12. Policy Considerations Digital asset transfers must be policy-driven in the sense that it must observe and enforce the policies defined for the network. Resources that make-up a network are owned and operated by entities (e.g. legal persons or organizations), and these entities typically operate within regulatory jurisdictions [FATF]. It is the responsibility of these entities to translate regulatory policies into functions on networks that comply to the relevant regulatory policies. At the application layer, asset transfers must take into consideration the legal status of assets and incorporate relevant asset-related policies into their business logic. These policies must permeate down to the gateways that implement the functions of asset transaction processing. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 21] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 13. Threat Analysis Considerations The SAT protocol faces challenges with regards to the confidentiality of a transfer between gateways, and the potential issue related to a denial-of-service (and resource waste) when either gateway is not compliant with the protocol. For confidentiality of a transfer, the secure asset transfer protocol must utilize a TLS1.2 (TLS1.3) secure channel that must be established between the sender gateway (G1) and the receiver gateway (G2). The two gateways must first establish this secure channel at the start of Stage 1 before they can proceed to execute the asset transfer protocol. This includes both gateways verifying all the relevant parameters required for their TLS1.2 session (e.g. correct TLS endpoints, certificate validation, identity validation, etc.). There are several challenges that may arise when gateways are not compliant with the SAT protocol. Some of these are described below. 13.1. Multiple intentional aborts by the sender gateway A dishonest sender gateway G1 may purposely fail to continue the protocol run at certain crucial points. One such crucial point is in Stage-3, where the gateway G1 is expected to transmit the Commit- Final Assertion message (3.5). If the gateway G1 intentionally fails to transmit this message, gateway G2 may conclude that the message has been lost and may proceed to reverse the temporary hold it has previously created (temporary asset mint in message 3.2). Although this dishonest behavior by G1 does not cause asset damage to G2 or NW2, it may exhaust computing resources at gateway G2. If network NW2 incurs transaction fees, such a reversal may be costly for gateway G2. 13.2. Multiple intentional aborts by the receiver gateway In a similar manner, a receiver gateway G2 may also purposely fail to continue the protocol run at certain crucial points. One such point is the Commit-Ready message (3.3) that it should transmit to G1 after receiving the commit prepare message (3.1) from G1. In this case, gateway G1 may conclude that the message is lost and simply abort the protocol run. Another possible denial-of-service attack could arise when G2 purposefully fails to send a Lock-Assertion-Receipt (2.4), thereby forcing G1 to reverse its lock that was performed earlier (2.1). Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 22] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 13.3. Failure to transmit ACK-Final Receipt Another possible point of attack by a dishonest gateway G2 may occur by the gateway intentionally failing to transmit the ACK-Final- Receipt (3.7) in response to the Commit-Final Assertion message (3.5) from gateway G1. Here, the sender gateway G1 may conclude that the message is lost and will assume that the transaction has reach completion in network NW2. The sender gateway G1 has retained the previous Lock-Assertion Receipt (2.4) in Stage-2 that was signed by G2, indicating that the gateway G2 has accepted the responsibility of ensuring that the asset-assignment (3.6) by G2 will be correctly executed. Failure by G2 to complete this task becomes a financial and legal liability for the owner of gateway G2. In general, it is recommended that multiple redundant gateways be utilized within a network to mitigate a single gateway's malicious behavior. Furthermore, there are gateway recovery and failover mechanisms that have been defined in [BCH21]. 13.4. Failure to extinguish asset Another potential attack may come from a dishonest gateway G1 who intentionally fails to extinguish the asset in network NW1 (in step 3.4). This means G1 is henceforth in control of the asset. This type of denial-of-service is network specific because it implies that G1 was able to perform a lock on the asset on behalf of the asset- owner (i.e. originator) through one or more mechanisms supported by network NW1 independent of (and prior to) the secure asset transfer protocol. This denial-of-service is out of scope for the current architecture specification because it represents a weakness on the part of the network NW1. 13.5. Identity impersonations Another vector of attack may involve a gateway that impersonates an asset holder in a given network. For example, a gateway G1 may pretend to be the owner of an asset (originator) in network NW1 and proceed to transfer it to a beneficiary located in network NW2. The verification of the identity of the originator and beneficiary must be performed as part of the set-up stage (Stage 0) as described in Section 6, which is currently out-of-scope for the secure asset transfer protocol. Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 23] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 The identity verification includes that of the owner of gateways G1 and G2 respectively. Standard protocols for federated identity management already exist and have wide deployment. 14. Compatibility Considerations As the asset transfer protocol must be agnostic to the anatomy of a digital asset and to the type of ledger technology underlying a system maintaining digital assets, it must be compatible with different asset identification standards like ISO 20022 and ITIN, and with standards for communicating information about business processes (like ISO 20022). Keeping the Stage-0 specification open and not tied to a specific messaging or identification standard allows the Secure Asset Transfer architecture to be flexible and inclusive, and thereby meet compatibility goals. 15. References 15.1. Normative References [FATF] FATF, "International Standards on Combating Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism and Proliferation - FATF Revision of Recommendation 15 (Updated June 2021)", October 2018, . [ISO] ISO, "Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies- Vocabulary (ISO:22739:2020)", July 2020, . [ISO20022] ISO, "Universal Financial Industry Message Scheme (ISO 20022).", July 2023, . [ITIN] ITSA, "International Token Identification Number.", July 2023, . [NIST] Yaga, D., Mell, P., Roby, N., and K. Scarfone, "NIST Blockchain Technology Overview (NISTR-8202)", October 2018, . [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . 15.2. Informative References Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 24] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 [ABCH20] Ankenbrand, T., Bieri, D., Cortivo, R., Hoehener, J., and T. Hardjono, "Proposal for a Comprehensive Crypto Asset Taxonomy", May 2020, . [Abebe19] Abebe, E., Behl, D., Govindarajan, C., Hu, Y., Karunamoorthy, D., Novotny, P., Pandit, V., Ramakrishna, V., and C. Vecchiola, "Enabling Enterprise Blockchain Interoperability with Trusted Data Transfer (Middleware 2019, Industry Track)", December 2019, . [Abebe21] Abebe, E., Hu, Y., Irvin, A., Karunamoorthy, D., Pandit, V., Ramakrishna, V., and J. Yu, "Verifiable Observation of Permissioned Ledgers (ICBC2021)", May 2021, . [BCH21] Belchior, R., Correia, M., and T. Hardjono, "DLT Gateway Crash Recovery Mechanism, IETF, draft-belchior-gateway- recovery-01.", March 2021, . [BVGC20] Belchior, R., Vasconcelos, A., Guerreiro, S., and M. Correia, "A Survey on Blockchain Interoperability: Past, Present, and Future Trends", May 2020, . [Clar88] Clark, D., "The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols, ACM Computer Communication Review, Proc SIGCOMM 88, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 106-114", August 1988. [DevID] IEEE, "802.1AR: Secure Device Identity", August 2018, . [DLVIEW] Ramakrishna, V., Pandit, V., Nishad, S., Narayanam, K., and D. Vinayagamurthy, "Views and View Addresses for Blockchain/DLT Interoperability, IETF Draft", November 2021. [Gray81] Gray, J., "The Transaction Concept: Virtues and Limitations, in VLDB Proceedings of the 7th International Conference, Cannes, France, September 1981, pp. 144-154", September 1981. [Herl19] Herlihy, M., "Blockchains From a Distributed Computing Perspective, Communications of the ACM, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 78-85", February 2019, . Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 25] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 [HLP19] Hardjono, T., Lipton, A., and A. Pentland, "Towards and Interoperability Architecture for Blockchain Autonomous Systems, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management", June 2019, . [HS2019] Hardjono, T. and N. Smith, "Decentralized Trusted Computing Base for Blockchain Infrastructure Security, Frontiers Journal, Special Issue on Blockchain Technology, Vol. 2, No. 24", December 2019, . [RATS] Birkholz, H., Thaler, D., Richardson, M., Smith, N., and W. Pan, "Remote ATtestation procedureS (RATS) Architecture", January 2023, . [SATcore] Hargreaves, M., Hardjono, T., and R. Belchior, "IETF Secure Asset Transfer Protocol (SATP)", 9 July 2023, .>. [SRC84] Saltzer, J., Reed, D., and D. Clark, "End-to-End Arguments in System Design, ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 277-288", November 1984. [TPMdevID] TCG, "TPM 2.0 Keys for Device Identity and Attestation", 8 October 2021, . Appendix A. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the following people for their input and support: Andre Augusto, Denis Avrilionis, Rafael Belchior, Carsten Bormann, Sandip Chakraborty, Shiping Chen, Alexandru Chiriac, Claire Facer, Martin Gfeller, Bishakh Ghosh, Wes Hardaker, Paul Hoffman, Russ Housley, Nick Kerrigan, Krishnasuri Narayanam, Chris Ostrowski, Vinayaka Pandit, Luke Riley, John Robotham, Orie Steele, Peter Somogyvari, Mike Trutter, Gilbert Verdian, Dhinakaran Vinayagamurthy, Paul Wouters, Qin Wang, Weijia Zhang. Authors' Addresses Thomas Hardjono MIT Email: hardjono@mit.edu Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 26] Internet-Draft SAT Architecture December 2024 Martin Hargreaves Quant Network Email: martin.hargreaves@quant.network Ned Smith Intel Email: ned.smith@intel.com Venkatraman Ramakrishna IBM Email: vramakr2@in.ibm.com Hardjono, et al. Expires 21 June 2025 [Page 27]