PIC Protocols

The PIC ecosystem is layered: the PIC Model defines the formal semantics of authority continuity; the PIC Specification defines the generic requirements every conforming system MUST satisfy.

A PIC Protocol is a concrete technical specification — wire formats, types and encodings, transport, cryptographic suite — that implements the PIC Specification. Protocols may be defined by PIC itself, by providers of PIC-compliant solutions, or through an open working group; official ones are published as subordinate specifications of the PIC Specification.

Conformance

A PIC Protocol is PIC-compliant if and only if it implements a declared version of the PIC Specification and preserves the invariants of the PIC Formal Model.

An implementation is PIC-compliant if and only if it correctly implements a PIC-compliant protocol — or, where no protocol technical specification is published, if it directly implements a declared version of the PIC Specification and preserves the invariants of the PIC Formal Model.

Protocol Specifications

Protocol technical specifications MAY be published as subordinate specifications of the PIC Specification, indexed in the Documents table of the entry point pic-spec.md. Each MUST declare the PIC Specification version it implements, MUST NOT alter the PIC Model invariants, and incorporates the PIC Legal Appendices by reference.

No protocol specification has been published yet.