Merge pull request #112 from mnm678/keyid-proposal

Add TAP for keyid flexibility

candidate-keyid-tap.md

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+* TAP: TBD
+* Title: Improving keyid flexibility
+* Version: 1.0.0
+* Last-Modified: 09-04-2020
+* Author: Marina Moore
+* Status: Draft
+* Content-Type: markdown
+* Created: 18-03-2020
+* TUF-Version: 1.1.0
+* Post-History: 25-03-2020
+
+# Abstract
+
+Keyids are used in TUF metadata as shorthand references to identify keys. They
+are used in place of keys in metadata to assign keys to roles and to identify
+them in signature headers. The TUF specification requires that every keyid used
+in TUF metadata be calculated using a SHA2-256 hash of the public key it
+represents. This algorithm is used elsewhere in the TUF specification and so
+provides an existing method for calculating unique keyids. Yet, such a rigid
+requirement does not allow for the deprecation of SHA2-256. A security flaw in
+SHA2-256 may be discovered, so TUF implementers may choose to deprecate this
+algorithm. If SHA2-256 is deprecated in a TUF implementation, it should no longer be used to
+calculate keyids. Therefore TUF should allow more flexibility in how keyids are
+determined. To this end, this TAP proposes a change to the TUF specification
+that would remove the requirement that all keyids be calculated using SHA2-256.
+Instead, the specification will allow metadata owners to use any method for
+calculating keyids as long as each one is unique within the metadata file in
+which it is defined to ensure a fast lookup of trusted signing keys. This
+change will allow for the deprecation of SHA2-256 and will give metadata owners
+flexibility in how they determine keyids.
+
+
+# Motivation
+
+Currently, the TUF specification requires that keyids must be the SHA2-256 hash
+of the public key they represent. This algorithm ensures that keyids are unique
+within a metadata file (and indeed, throughout the implementation) and creates a
+short, space-saving representation. SHA2-256 also offers a number of secure
+hashing properties, though these are not necessary for these purposes. In this
+case SHA2-256 is simply a way to calculate a unique identifier employing an
+algorithm that is already in use by the system.
+
+The specification sets the following requirements for keyid calculation:
+1. "The KEYID of a key is the hexdigest of the SHA-256 hash of the canonical JSON form of the key."
+2. "Clients MUST calculate each KEYID to verify this is correct for the associated key."
+3. "Clients MUST ensure that for any KEYID...only one unique key has that KEYID."
+
+## Problems with this requirement
+Mandating that keyids be calculated using SHA2-256 has created a number of issues
+for some implementations, such as:
+* Lack of consistency in implementations that use other hash algorithms for
+  calculating file hashes and would prefer not to introduce SHA2-256 for this
+  one instance. For example, the PEP 458 implementation
+  will use the BLAKE2 hashing algorithm throughout the implementation.
+* Incompatibility with some smart cards and PGP implementations that have their
+  own way of calculating keyids.
+* Inability to adapt if SHA2-256 should be deprecated. In such a case, metadata
+  owners may decide that maintaining a deprecated algorithm for use in keyid
+  calculation does not make sense.
+* Space concerns may require even shorter hashes than those SHA2-256 can generate,
+  such as an index.
+In these and other cases, TUF should provide a metadata file owner with the
+flexibility to use keyids that are not calculated using SHA2-256.
+
+# Rationale
+
+TUF uses keyids as shorthand references to identify which keys are trusted to
+sign each metadata file. As they eliminate the need to list the full key every
+time, they take up less space in metadata signatures than the actual signing
+key, reducing bandwidth usage and download times.
+
+The most important quality of keyids used in TUF is their uniqueness. To be
+effective identifiers, all keyids defined within a metadata file must be unique.
+For example, a root file that delegates trust to root, snapshot, timestamp, and
+top-level targets should provide unique keyids for each key trusted to sign
+metadata for these roles. By doing so, a client may check metadata signatures
+in O(1) time by looking up the proper key for verification.
+
+Failing to provide unique keyids can have consequences for both functionality
+and security. These are a few attacks that are possible when keyids are not unique:
+* **Invalid Signature Verification**: A client may lookup the wrong key to use
+  in signature verification leading to an invalid signature verification error,
+  even if the signature used the correct key.
+* **Keyid collision**: If root metadata listed the same keyid K for different
+  snapshot and root keys, an attacker with access to the snapshot key would also
+  be able to sign valid root metadata. Using the snapshot key to sign root
+  metadata, the attacker could then list the signature in the header with K. A
+  client verifying the signature of this root metadata file, would use K to
+  lookup a key trusted to sign root, and would find the snapshot key and
+  continue the update with the malicious root metadata. To prevent this
+  privilege escalation attack, metadata file owners should ensure that
+  every keyid is associated with a single key in each metadata file.
+One attack that does not need to be considered is a hash collision. Though an
+attacker who is able to exploit a hash collision against the function used to
+calculate the keyid will be able to identify another key that hashes to the
+value of the keyid, the client will only use a key that is listed in the
+metadata. The attacker would not be able to put a malicious key into the
+metadata without the metadata signing key, so a hash collision cannot be used
+to maliciously sign files.
+
+# Specification
+
+With just a few minor changes to the current TUF specification process, we can
+remove the requirement that keyids must be calculated using SHA2-256. First, the
+specification wording should be updated to allow the metadata owner to calculate
+keyids using any method that produces a unique identifier within the metadata
+file. This means replacing requirements 1 and 2 above with a description of
+required keyid properties, ie “The KEYID is an identifier for the key that is
+determined by the metadata owner and MUST be unique within the delegating metadata file (either root or
+delegating targets metadata).” Once this keyid is determined by the metadata
+owner using their chosen method, it will be listed in the delegating metadata
+file and in all signatures that use the corresponding key. When parsing metadata
+signatures, the client would use the keyid(s) listed in the signature header to
+find the key(s) that are trusted for that role in the delegating metadata. This
+should be described in the specification by replacing requirement 3 above with
+“Clients MUST use the keyids from the delegating role to look up trusted signing
+keys to verify signatures.” To ensure that a client does not use the same key
+to verify a signature more than once, they must additionally check that all keys
+applied to a signature threshold are unique. So, the specification should
+additionally require that "Clients MUST use each key only once during a given
+signature verification." During this de-duplication check, the client should use
+a standardized representation for keys, like the [modulus and exponent for RSA](https://cryptography.io/en/latest/hazmat/primitives/asymmetric/rsa/#numbers)
+or the [point and curve for ECC](https://cryptography.io/en/latest/hazmat/primitives/asymmetric/ec/#cryptography.hazmat.primitives.asymmetric.ec.EllipticCurvePublicNumbers).
+All metadata definitions would remain the same, but
+the client’s verification process would track keyids within each metadata file
+instead of globally.
+
+In order for TUF clients to adhere to these specification changes, they may have
+to change the way they store and process keyids. Clients will use the keyids
+from a metadata file only for all delegations defined in that metadata file. So
+if a targets metadata file T delegates to A and B, the client should verify the
+signatures of A and B using the trusted keyids from T. When verifying
+signatures, clients should try all signatures that match their trusted keyid(s).
+If T trusts keyid K to sign A’s metadata, the client should check all
+signatures in A that list a keyid of K. This means that if another metadata file
+M delegates to A, it would be able to use the same keyid with a different key.
+However, clients must ensure that duplicate keys are not applied to the same
+signature threshold. To do so, they must additionally keep track of the keys
+used to verify a signature using a standardized representation as discussed above. Once
+the signatures for A and B have been checked,
+the client no longer needs to store the keyid mapping listed in T. During the
+preorder depth-first search of targets metadata, the keyids from each targets
+metadata file should be used in only that stage of the depth-first search.
+
+These changes to the specification allow the repository to use any scheme to
+assign keyids (not just SHA2-256) without needing to communicate it to clients. By making this
+scheme independent of the client implementation, root and targets metadata may
+use different methods to determine keyids, especially if they are managed by
+different people (ie TAP 5). In addition, the repository may update the scheme
+at any time to deprecate a hash algorithm or change to a different keyid
+calculation method.
+
+## Keyid Deprecation
+With the proposed specification changes, the method used to determine keyids
+is not only more flexible, but it may be deprecated using the following process
+for each key D and keyid K in the root or delegating targets metadata file:
+* The owner of the metadata file determines a new keyid L for D using the new method.
+* In the next version of the metadata file, the metadata owner replaces K with L
+  in the keyid definition for D.
+* Any files previously signed by D should list L as the keyid instead of K.
+  These files do not need to be resigned as only the signature header will be updated.
+Once this process is complete, the metadata owner is using a new method to
+determine the keyids used by that metadata file.
+
+As keyid deprecation is executed, it is important that keyids within each
+metadata file remain unique. Metadata owners should only publish metadata that
+contains a unique keyid to key mapping.
+
+## Implications for complex delegation trees
+Although keyids need to be unique within each metadata file, they do not need to
+be unique for each delegated role. It is possible for different keyids to
+represent the same key in different metadata files, even if both metadata files
+delegate to the same role. Consider two delegated targets metadata files A and B
+that delegate to the same targets metadata file C. If A delegates to C with
+key D with keyid K and B delegates to C with key D with keyid L, the signature
+header of C will contain the following:
+```
+  {
+    "sigs": [
+      {
+        "keyid": "K",
+        "sig": "abcd..."
+      },
+      {
+        "keyid": "L",
+        "sig": "abcd..."
+      },
+      ...
+    ],
+    ...
+  }
+```
+These delegations can be processed during the preorder depth-first search of
+targets metadata as follows:
+* When the search reaches A, it will look for a signature with a keyid of K in C.
+  If it finds this and validates it, the search will continue if a threshold of
+  signatures has not been reached.
+* When the search reaches B, it will look for a signature with a keyid of L in C.
+  If it finds this and validates it, the search will continue if a threshold of
+  signatures has not been reached.
+Once the search is complete, if a threshold of signatures is reached the
+metadata in C will be used to continue the update process. Therefore, K and L
+may be used as keyids for D in different metadata files. As clients store keyids
+only for use in the current delegation, this should not require a change to the
+client process described in this document.
+
+In this case, the same key D is used to verify C twice, once when A delegates to
+C and once when B delegates to C. As the key is only used once during each
+delegation, this does not violate the client verification of key uniqueness
+described in this TAP. If the keyids L and K were both used in the same
+delegation (say A delegating to C), then these signatures would only contribute
+a single valid signature to the threshold due to the client verification.
+
+It is also possible for the same keyid to represent different keys in different
+metadata files. Consider a targets metadata file A that delegates to C with key
+D and keyid K and a targets metadata file B that delegates to C with key E and
+keyid K. The signature header of C will contain the following:
+```
+  {
+    "sigs": [
+      {
+        "keyid": "K",
+        "sig": "abcd..."
+      },
+      {
+        "keyid": "K",
+        "sig": "efgh..."
+      },
+      ...
+    ],
+    ...
+  }
+```
+
+During the depth-first search of targets metadata, the client will process these
+delegations as follows:
+* When the search reaches A, it will look for a signature with a keyid of K in
+  C. It will discover two signatures with the given keyid, and will check each
+  using the key D. If either passes the verification, the search will continue
+  if a threshold of signatures has not been reached.
+* When the search reaches B, it will look for a signature with a keyid of K in
+  C. It will discover two signatures with the given keyid, and will check each
+  using the key E. If either passes the verification, the search will continue
+  if a threshold of signatures has not been reached.
+Using this process, the same keyid may be used across metadata files without
+being associated with the same key.
+
+In both of these cases, the client must ensure that signatures using the same
+key are not applied to the same threshold. To do so, clients must keep track
+of the keys used during signature verification to ensure that there is a
+threshold of unique keys that have signed the metadata.
+
+# Security Analysis
+
+TUF clients only trust keys that are defined in signed metadata files. For this
+reason, the method of calculating keyids does not allow an attacker to add
+new trusted keys to the system. However, a bad keyid scheme could allow a
+privilege escalation in which the client verifies one metadata file with a
+key from a role not trusted to sign that metadata file. This proposal prevents
+privilege escalation attacks by requiring that metadata owners use unique keyids
+within each metadata file, as described in the rationale.
+
+# Backwards Compatibility
+
+Metadata files that are generated using SHA2-256 will be compatible with clients
+that implement this change. However, clients that continue to check that
+keyids are generated using SHA2-256 will not be compatible with metadata that
+uses a different method for calculating keyids.
+
+For backwards compatibility, metadata owners may choose to continue to use
+SHA2-256 to calculate keyids.
+
+# Augmented Reference Implementation
+
+TODO
+
+# Copyright
+
+This document has been placed in the public domain.