Re: [w3ctag/design-reviews] Trust Token API (#414)

I don't really have a lot to add here.  There has been some activity that I haven't been following closely, but I'm not seeing any concrete progress on the truly thorny pieces of this.

Much of the privacy properties of the underlying privacy pass work depend on the client having a clear understanding of what information it is propagating across privacy boundaries.  As a generic mechanism, this becomes essentially impossible to validate without knowledge of the application context and the information that is being exchanged.  I don't think that we are in any position to say that a generic framework like the one proposed is workable.

There are things that *might* be OK to enshrine in the platform with only limited safeguards (those safeguards might extend to including explicit consent, though opinions on what is appropriate here differ widely).  Steven is talking here about using this for CAPTCHA, in which case the information being carried might be "X believes that this client is not a robot", which is one of the best example applications of this that we currently have.  Even there, there are difficult caveats to work through.  That includes those issues Steven mentions, but larger questions too.

I haven't seen progress (though, again, not I'm paying close enough attention, sorry) to suggest that the embedding information through the choice of token issuer keys has been adequately addressed, nor the corresponding issue of centralization that the solutions to that problem generally lead to.  These are really difficult problems, even for the relatively narrow space of making asserts about the difference between natural and artificial intelligence.

I don't know if the TAG has any established policy with respect to research projects.  The IETF is generally careful to identify and avoid projects that include a significant exposure to questions unanswered in science.  This is one of those cases where you might be best deferring any concrete resolution until those central questions are answered.

My intent here being not to discourage the research (this could be a really useful technology), but to ensure that it is better understood.  Again, if there have been results regarding these questions and I simply missed them, I apologize and hope that Steven or Charlie can enlighten us all.  (I will read that work with great interest.)

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