Specification 12 — Mode 3: TC Certificate PKI

Definition

Organizations with their own certificate/document formats and workflow semantics. Custom delegation rules, custom verification pipelines, custom archival rules.

CNML flagship deployment

CNML 5-tier hierarchy (SVG)

The CNML project is the Mode 3 flagship. It demonstrates Confium at the highest-stakes end:

• International treaty organization (60+ member states)
• Nation-state adversary (both cyber and political)
• Decades-long archival
• Sovereignty sensitivity (no single nation trusted)
• Globally distributed directors (async signing required)
• Annual ceremony cadence

Five-tier hierarchy

BIML Root (5-of-7, annual ceremony)
  └─→ IA Cert (2-of-3, async)
        ├─→ TL Cert (single-party)
        └─→ Manufacturer Model Cert (scoped delegation)
              └─→ Instance Cert (single-party, manufacturer-issued)

Each tier has its own threshold structure. See 80 — CNML deployment for the full specification.

Components specific to Mode 3

Component	Purpose
confium-pki (cert + delegation + cms + xmldsig)	X.509, scoped delegation, CMS, XML signatures
confium-deployment	Deployment manifest + actor identity
confium-transparency	Merkle tree + OTS + ERS (transparency + long-term archival)
confium-attributes	Attribute-based threshold party selection
confium-patterns	Escrow + revocation (Thunderbird-inspired)

Deployment manifest

Mode 3 deployments are described by a TOML manifest encoding:

• Tier structure (number, names, roles)
• Quorum T/N per tier
• Attribute predicates (geography, expertise, COI)
• Delegation rules (depth, scope)
• Async signing policy
• Transparency log policy
• Archival / re-quorum cadence

See the confium-deployment crate for the schema.

Implementation source

• Crates: confium-pki, confium-deployment, confium-transparency, confium-attributes, confium-patterns
• Example: confium-examples/src/bin/mini_cnml_demo.rs