docs: describe the minimal invitation and where its security comes from
The README, ARCHITECTURE.md and CRYPTOGRAPHY.md still described the old handshake: keys and a session salt travelling inside the invitation, and a safety code derived from the two DTLS fingerprints. None of that has been true since 5.9.0. Adds a "The invitation" section to the README covering what the exchange was reduced to and why that is a security change and not only a smaller QR code: less material exposed before anyone is authenticated, the DTLS fingerprint as the anchor, substituted keys failing closed on the commitment instead of on a human comparison, a safety code that now covers the whole transcript rather than two fingerprints, and the plain fact that a single QR is scanned in person where a four-frame animated one pushes people to paste the invitation through a chat app. Session lifecycle in ARCHITECTURE.md gains the in-band key exchange as its own step. CRYPTOGRAPHY.md now states that the salt is derived from the transcript rather than transmitted, and describes the transcript SAS and the signature that replaced the challenge/response. DESCRIPTOR-SBQ2.md is listed in the doc index and in the CONTRIBUTING impact table.
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@@ -28,9 +28,12 @@ handle; those are raw bytes and are overwritten when finished with.
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## Session establishment
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A session begins with one ECDH exchange. The public keys travel inside signed
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packages, and the receiving side validates the SPKI structure (algorithm OID,
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curve, point format and length) before importing anything.
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A session begins with one ECDH exchange. The public keys do **not** travel in the
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invitation — they are sent over the data channel once it opens, and are checked
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against a 16-byte commitment carried in the invitation before they are parsed or
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imported. The receiving side then validates the SPKI structure (algorithm OID,
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curve, point format and length) before importing anything. See
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[DESCRIPTOR-SBQ2.md](DESCRIPTOR-SBQ2.md) for the wire format and the reasoning.
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From the shared secret, HKDF-SHA256 derives five independent values, each under
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its own `info` label so that recovering one reveals nothing about the others:
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@@ -47,15 +50,31 @@ The raw ECDH output is produced with `deriveBits`, used as HKDF input material,
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and the buffer holding it is overwritten as soon as derivation completes. It is
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never exported through an extractable key.
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The 64-byte session salt is generated by the inviting peer and travels in the
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invitation, so both sides derive the same schedule.
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The 64-byte session salt is **not transmitted**. Both sides derive it as
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SHA-512 of the handshake transcript — both invitations byte for byte, and both
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key blobs, each length-prefixed. That has two consequences: the salt cannot be
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steered by either side alone, and every key in the schedule is bound to both DTLS
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fingerprints and every ICE candidate that was exchanged.
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## Verification
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Both peers compute the same safety code with HKDF, from the ECDH-derived key
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fingerprint together with both DTLS fingerprints. The fingerprints are
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canonicalised and sorted so that each side reaches the same value regardless of
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role.
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Both peers compute the same safety code with HKDF-SHA256, using the raw ECDH
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shared secret as input material and the SHA-256 of the handshake transcript as
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salt. The transcript covers **both invitations verbatim** — version byte, flags,
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expiry, fingerprints, ICE credentials, every candidate, the commitments — and
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**both key blobs**, each with a length prefix so no field boundary can be shifted.
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Components are ordered by role rather than by who is computing, so both sides
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reach the same seven digits.
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Because the shared secret is the input material, an attacker who observes the
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entire transcript still cannot predict the digits. Because the transcript is the
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salt, nothing exchanged anywhere in the handshake, in either direction, can be
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altered without changing them.
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Possession of the identity key is proved separately: each side signs the
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transcript with its ECDSA key and sends the signature over the channel. This
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replaced an earlier challenge/response that echoed a nonce back across seven
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fields; one signature binds the whole handshake at once.
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Users compare the code through a channel an attacker cannot impersonate and enter
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it manually. Local success is not sufficient: the session becomes verified only
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@@ -63,8 +82,13 @@ after both peers confirm. Three incorrect entries end the session.
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This is the step that makes the rest meaningful. Completing the key exchange
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proves only that someone completed it; anyone able to rewrite the invitation can
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do that with both people at once. The safety code covers the keys actually in
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use, so a substitution changes the code the users read to each other.
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do that with both people at once. The safety code covers the keys actually in use
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and the invitations they arrived with, so a substitution anywhere changes the code
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the users read to each other.
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Key substitution alone — an attacker who can rewrite the in-band blob but not the
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invitation — does not get that far: the commitment check fails first and the
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connection is closed without anyone comparing anything.
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Verification is also a gate rather than a label. Before it completes, the session
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declines to act on control messages from the peer: reconnection signalling, call
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