Introduction

Digital credentials are essential to identity, authorization, licenses, 
certificates, and digitization use cases that are part of modernization efforts 
targeting efficiency and transparency.

A digital credential expresses claims or attributes about a subject, such as 
their name or age, and their cryptographic keys. Some sets of claim names have 
already been defined by the IETF and other standards development groups (e.g., 
OpenID Foundation).

Digital credentials typically involve at least three entities but can include 
more:

*       An "issuer", an entity (person, device, organization, or software 
agent) that constructs and secures digital credentials.
*       A "holder", an entity (person, device, organization, or software agent) 
that controls the disclosure of credentials.
*       A "verifier", an entity (person, device, organization, or software 
agent) that verifies and validates secured digital credentials.

In some contexts, holders may be willing either to partially disclose some 
values of their attributes or to demonstrate some properties about their 
attributes without disclosing their values. When disclosed by an entity, a 
proof of the digital credential needs to be provided and verified, so that only 
the legitimate holder of the digital credential can take advantage of its 
possession.

Some holders may wish to carry more than one digital credential. These 
credentials, together with associated key material, can be stored in an 
identity digital wallet.

The W3C has published the 'Verifiable Credentials Data Model v2.0' 
specification (VCDM) with data serialization in JSON-LD. In this charter, the 
VCDM defined concept of “verifiable credential” and “verifiable presentation” 
is captured using the wording "digital credential" and "digital presentation" 
respectively.

Goal

The SPICE WG will profile existing IETF technologies and address residual gaps 
that would enable their use in digital credentials and presentations based upon 
JWT and CWT technologies.

*       The JOSE WG is already standardizing a token format for unlinkability & 
selective disclosure in the form of JWP/CWP (draft-ietf-jose-json-web-proof 
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-jose-json-web-proof/> ). The SPICE 
WG will profile these token formats for use with digital credentials.
*       The OAUTH WG is already standardizing a token format for unlinkability 
& selective disclosure in the form of SD-JWT/SD-JWT-VC 
(draft-ietf-oauth-selective-disclosure-jwt 
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-oauth-selective-disclosure-jwt/>  
and draft-ietf-oauth-sd-jwt-vc 
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-oauth-sd-jwt-vc/> ). The SPICE WG 
will define SD-CWT/SD-CWT-VC, analogs for these JWT-based tokens but based on 
CWT.

The SPICE WG will coordinate with the RATS, OAuth, JOSE, COSE and SCITT working 
groups that develop architecture, patterns and definition documents related to 
the identity and credential space. The SPICE WG will build on cryptographic 
primitives defined in the CFRG (e.g., BBS Signatures) and will not define novel 
cryptographic schemes.

The SPICE WG will not develop digital credentials for any particular use case. 
The SPICE WG will create general-purpose profiles which will enable credential 
issuers, holders and verifiers to easily build on existing IETF CWT and JWT 
technologies.

Program of Work

The SPICE WG is expected to develop:

*       An informational Architecture that defines the terminology (e.g., 
Issuer, Holder,Verifier, Claims, Credentials, Presentations) and the essential 
communication patterns between roles, such as credential issuance, where an 
issuer delivers a credential to a holder, and presentation, where a holder 
delivers a presentation to a verifier.
*       Proposed standard documents for digital credential profiles covering 
JWP and CWP (from JOSE) that enable digital credentials with unlinkability and 
selective disclosure. This work will include registering claims that are in the 
JWT and CWT registries to enable digital credentials to transition from one 
security format to another (i.e., JSON/CBOR).
*       A proposed standard document defining SD-CWT, a profile of CWT inspired 
by SD-JWT (from OAuth) that enables digital credentials with unlinkability and 
selective disclosure.
*       A proposed standard Metadata Discovery protocol using HTTPS/CoAP for 
CBOR-based digital credentials to enable the 3 roles (issuers, holders and 
verifiers) to discover supported protocols and formats for keys, claims, 
credential types and proofs. The design will be inspired by the OAuth 
"vc-jwt-issuer" metadata work (draft-ietf-oauth-sd-jwt-vc 
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-oauth-sd-jwt-vc/> ) which supports 
ecosystems using JSON serialization.

Milestones

*       04-2025 - Submit an informational Architecture document to the IESG for 
publication
*       10-2025 - Submit a proposed standard document covering a JWP/CWP 
profile for digital credentials to the IESG for publication
*       10-2025 - Submit a proposed standard document defining SD-CWT to the 
IESG for publication
*       03-2026 - Submit a document as a proposed standard covering Metadata 
Discovery to the IESG for publication

 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-spice/00-00/#introduction> 
Introduction

 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-spice/00-00/#goal> Goal

 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-spice/00-00/#program-of-work> 
Program of Work

 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-spice/00-00/#milestones> 
Milestones

 

 

 

 

From: Orie Steele <orie@transmute.industries> 
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2024 6:15 PM
To: Anthony Nadalin <nada...@prodigy.net>
Cc: Roman Danyliw <r...@cert.org>; oauth <oauth@ietf.org>
Subject: Re: [OAUTH-WG] FW: Call for consensus on SPICE charter

 

Inline:

On Mon, Feb 19, 2024, 7:34 PM <nada...@prodigy.net <mailto:nada...@prodigy.net> 
> wrote:

Orie, thanks for the response

 

I’m still confused on this charter proposal as I read this charter it is to 
create architecture, patterns and definitions for electronic credentials. The 
charter should be free of any technology including W3C, if people want clarity 
about what an electronic credential is then they can help out with the 
definitions since that is an output, so I don’t agree with how W3C is mentioned 
in the charter. 

 

As you pointed out below, W3C has defined credentials that are simply public 
keys bound to an origin (used as authenticators), and issuer signed claims 
about a subject (like JWTs)

 

So far the people who have been most active seem interested in generalizing the 
"signed public key and attributes" version of a digital credential. That 
definition lines up well with JWT and CWT with the cnf claim, and mDoc (as I 
understand it).

 

Most of the value W3C VC Data Model provides is focused on creating a structure 
for the claims that go in the credential. The security of W3C VCs based on JWT, 
SD-JWT, and COSE comes from the IETF drafts not from W3C.

 

Some of the protocol connection points also come from IETF documents, for 
example aud, nonce and cnf.

 

Most of the value JWT and CWT provide, is through the public claims and private 
claims in the associated IANA registries. For example, this is where the cnf 
claim that ties proof of possession to credentials is registered.

 

It's my understanding that mdocs have a namespace approach to claims as well.

 

Creating conventions for claims in a credential format is profiling. iso mdoc 
is a profile of COSE Sign1 in that sense.

 

You can consider the W3C documents that rely on JWT, CWT and COSE as profiles 
of those IETF standards. Instead of using JWT or CWT claimsets, the W3C uses 
JSON-LD.

 

A major reason for spice forming was to explore alternative claims structures, 
and to align CWT and JWT conventions for credentials that DO NOT require 
JSON-LD.

 

The way I read the charter is that interested parties will work on various 
profiles to map/profile various technologies to the create architecture, 
patterns and definitions documents, this will be done with various members that 
submit drafts.

 

Relative to WebAuthn what is produced is a credential, its not a JWT or SD-JWT 
but as the charter reads that is not the only credentials under consideration, 
if this is the case then the charter severely lacks clarity on what is the goal.

 

I don't think there is utility in IETF creating a profile for webauthn based 
credentials, because they are not meant to be presented beyond the origin they 
are bound to.

 

 

ISO is just another standards org, W3C, OIDF, OASIS, etc work with ISO with no 
issues, I assume profile will be created by various members that submit drafts, 
if no one is interested in mDL/ISO then that’s fine.

 

I still think this charter needs more clarity as I point out

 

Can you suggest text?

 

 

From: Orie Steele <orie@transmute.industries <mailto:orie@transmute.industries> 
> 
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2024 10:11 AM
To: nada...@prodigy.net <mailto:nada...@prodigy.net> 
Cc: Roman Danyliw <r...@cert.org <mailto:r...@cert.org> >; oauth 
<oauth@ietf.org <mailto:oauth@ietf.org> >
Subject: Re: [OAUTH-WG] FW: Call for consensus on SPICE charter

 

Hey Tony,

 

On Thu, Feb 15, 2024 at 1:36 PM <nada...@prodigy.net 
<mailto:nada...@prodigy.net> > wrote:

1) Do you support the charter text? Or do you have objections or blocking 
concerns (please describe what they might be and how you would propose 
addressing the concern)?

Not sure I support at this point, I understand the need for an architecture 
document with patterns and definitions, etc. 

There is a lot of work going on outside the IETF in this area such as the mDL 
work in ISO that already has patterns and definitions along with credential 
formats (mdoc)  and transports (ble/http/nfc). I don’t believe the IETF should 
ignore these efforts since most of the driving licence and passport 
communities/companies are adopting this as one of the standards that issuers 
and verifiers will use. The same is true for W3C WebAuthn.


WebAuthN cannot produce standard digital signatures, and so it cannot be used 
to produce standard digital credentials (for example it cannot be used to 
produce JWT or SD-JWT).
It could produce authentications for public keys that could be bound to 
credentials, but because of the origin binding in WebAuthN, this would not fit 
well with the "audience" typically used for digital credentials (usually there 
is no audience)

You might find this thread on possible relation between mDoc and CWT 
interesting:

https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/spice/xiRpmd-Bexv94qentlGg1Snjw1A/


The architecture, patterns and definitions should be free from technology, I 
don't know why W3C is mentioned in the introduction as the only technology, 
this should not be in the introduction but along with other technologies such 
as mDL/mdoc, webauthn, etc when describing profiles. As the goal would be for 
interested parties to produce profiles of other technologies to fit the 
architecture document with patterns and definitions.


W3C is mentioned because some W3C members asked for a term other than 
"Verifiable Credentials" to be used... and they asserted the "Verifiable 
Credentials" implies the JSON-LD data model developed in W3C.

ISO was not emphasized because formal coordination would require contribution 
from ISO experts, and we have had relatively low engagement from them.
 


I believe that the WG if formed should also think about holder verification and 
patterns and attestations that can be used.

 

Interesting. I think this is covered under the metadata discovery deliverable, 
but if you feel it could be made more clear, please send text.

 

Also there needs to be a notion of a "reader/wallet/etc" that can potentially 
store credentials (not necessarily the user or verifier) and release/store 
credentials upon "user" consent.


This sounds like an application to me.
How do you see this related to "credential formats" or "issuer/holder/verifier 
metadata"?
 



There are other models than the 3 party that VCs use, so these also need to be 
considered in the architecture,  patterns and definitions documents to enable 
profiles for other technologies.


Agreed, OAuth JWTs/SD-JWTs, and ISO mDocs are examples we have discussed.
Are there others you would like to see considered?  



I believe in the 1st 3 items in Goals but  I don't believe it would be in the 
best interest to define a metatdata protocol, as this sounds like this would be 
a protocol for obtaining DID documents, there are already many protocols out 
there for metadata retrieval, not sure there is a need for another one, if one 
is needed for DIDs then that may be better done in W3C as this does not seem to 
fit well with the charter


Discovering attestations for wallets seems to fit here, why should URLs or URNs 
(DIDs) be specifically marked as out of scope?

For consideration, JWK / COSE Key Thumbprints are good alternatives to DIDs 
which have been standardized / are being standardized in the IETF:

- https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-cose-key-thumbprint/
 


This charter seems to be very scoped to W3C technology, I understand that 
interested parties will have to contribute if they want to have other 
technologies included but the charter in general does not seem to allow this, 
so removing specific technology will allow this to happen.

 

We chose to use "Digital Credential" and "Digital Presentation" specifically to 
keep the door open to CWT and COSE Sign1 structures which are used in IETF and 
ISO.
 



I would be happy to give provide specific text changes to the charter.


I think it would be great if you could offer text that refines your comment 
about format support, and holder/wallet metadata / attestations.
 



2) If you do support the charter text:


3) Are you willing to author or participate in the developed of the WG drafts?

yes

• Are you willing to review the WG drafts?

yes

• Are you interested in implementing the WG drafts?

I'm willing to see how we can use these outputs with the other industry 
technologies.


Thank you for your comments.
 



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-- 

 

ORIE STEELE
Chief Technology Officer
www.transmute.industries <http://www.transmute.industries> 

 <https://transmute.industries/> 

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