Use Cases for SPICE mesur.io
mprorock@mesur.io
Gen Digital
Brent.Zundel@gendigital.com
Internet None SPICE This document describes various use cases related to credential exchange in a three party model (issuer, holder, verifier). These use cases aid in the identification of which Secure Patterns for Internet CrEdentials (SPICE) are most in need of specification or detailed documentation.
Notational Conventions The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in .
Introduction There is a need to more clearly document verifiable credentials - that is credentials that utilize the issuer, holder, and verifier (three party) model across various work IETF, ISO, W3C, and other SDOs. This need particularly arises in use cases for verifiable credentials that do not involve human-in-the-loop interactions, need strong identifiers for business entities, and for those that require CBOR encoding, and those that leverage the cryptographic agility properties of COSE. This document which covers multiple use cases for verifiable credentials will help inform both the required architecture and components, as well as to help frame needs for any clearly defined message formats and/or supporting mechanisms.
SPICE Common Patterns Within SPICE there are a few common patterns that continually arise:
  • A need for selective disclosure with CBOR based verifiable credentials
  • Cryptographic agility support via COSE, including support for PQC, and to permit use of the same signature algorithms with both selective disclosure as well as fully disclosed credentials
  • Required strong and long lived identities that are correlated with public key material for verifiacation and permit binding to DNS, existing x509 certificates, as well as providing ready access to public keys for verification utilizing HTTP
SPICE Use Cases There are several expanding use cases and common patterns that motivate the working group and broader community, including:
  • Use of microcredentials, particularly in education
  • Digitization of physical supply chain credentials in multiple jurisdictions
    • CBOR credentials
    • High volume with system to system exchange of credentions
    • both regulatory data as well as business driven information
  • IoT, Control Systems, and Critical Infrastructure related Credentials
  • Credentials related to authenticity and provenance, especially of digital media
  • Offline exchange (in person) of credentials that may have been internet issued
  • Embedding of credentials in other data formats
  • Digital Wallet Initiatives
Use Case Discussion
Roles 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.
Physical Supply Chain Credentials Physical supply chain credentials create several unique scenarios and requirements for technical implementers. There is a strong movement towards digitiztion of physical supply chain data which is often exchanged in paper or scanned pdf form today using legacy approaches. Some steps have been taken towards digitatization of supply chain data in XML, however the steps have proved problematic over native binary formats due to the complexity, size, and volumes of transmission often involved. Common use cases for physical supply chains include:
  • Regulatory data capture and exchange with governmental bodies
  • Requirements around capturing specific types of data including:
    • Inspection information
    • Permits
    • Compliance certification (both regulatory and private)
    • Traceability information, including change of control and geospatial coordinates
  • Providing the ability for 3rd parties to "certify" information about another actor in the supply chain. e.g. Vendor A is an approved supplier for Company X
  • Passing of data between multiple intermediaries, before being sent along to customs agencies or consignees.
  • Moving large amounts of signed data asyncronously, and bi-directionally over a network channel
  • Identifying actors in a supply chain and linking them with legal entity information
Credentials related to Authenticity and Provenance Due to a proliferation of AI generated or modified content, there has been an increased need to provide the ability to establish the provenance of digital material. Questions of authenticity and the means of creation (human created, machine assited, machine created) also abound, and in cases where AI generated content, providing the model information related to the generation of that content is becoming increasingly important. Common use cases include:
  • Understanding if a received piece of media is human created, and that the content is authorized for certain uses.
  • Providing the ability to trace training materials for LLMs and similar models to output
  • Understanding if media was created by an authoritative or trustworthy source
Others TBD
Security Considerations TBD
IANA Considerations NONE
Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank those that have worked on similar items and/or whom have provided input into this document, especially: Hannes Tschofenig, Henk Birkholz, Heather Flanagan, Kaliya Young, Orie Steele, Leif Johansson, Pamela Dingle, Tobias Looker, Kristina Yasuda, Daniel Fett, Oliver Terbu, and Michael Jones.
Normative References