• Rust
  • Edge AI
  • Cryptography
  • Network Protocol
  • Security
  • Milestone

TrustEdge Milestone 1 Complete: Network Stack, Key Management, and Production-Ready Format

TrustEdge has reached a major milestone! What started as a simple file encryption demo has evolved into a complete network stack for privacy-preserving, provenance-aware edge audio streaming. Milestone 1 (Format v1) is now complete, and the project has grown significantly in scope and capability.

What's New: The Big Picture

TrustEdge now provides three binaries working together as a complete system:

  • trustedge-audio: CLI for file encryption/decryption with envelope format
  • trustedge-server: Network server for chunk processing and validation
  • trustedge-client: Network client for streaming encrypted chunks

Major Features Added

Complete Network Stack

The project now includes a full client-server architecture for streaming encrypted chunks with real-time processing. Each chunk includes encrypted data, signed manifest, nonce, and timestamp. The server validates signatures, sequence numbers, and cryptographic integrity with comprehensive validation that prevents tampering, replay, and out-of-order attacks.

Enhanced Key Management

  • Keyring integration: Store passphrases securely in the system keyring
  • PBKDF2 key derivation: SHA-256, 100,000 iterations with 16-byte salt
  • Key ID support: Foundation for key rotation and management
  • Multiple key sources: Hex keys, keyring-derived keys, or random generation

Comprehensive Documentation

The project now includes detailed specifications:

  • FORMAT.md: Binary format specification with structures and validation rules
  • PROTOCOL.md: Network protocol for client-server chunk streaming
  • THREAT_MODEL.md: Security goals, threat analysis, and mitigations
  • ROADMAP.md: Project milestones and planned features
  • SECURITY.md: Security policy and vulnerability reporting

Production-Ready Security

  • Strict validation: Header consistency, key ID validation, strict sequencing
  • Security invariants: Cryptographic binding with fail-safe design
  • Test vectors: Deterministic golden hash verification (8ecc3b2fcb0887dfd6ff3513c0caa3febb2150a920213fa5b622243ad530f34c)
  • Comprehensive testing: Unit, integration, CLI, and network protocol tests

Example: Network Mode

Starting a server and streaming encrypted chunks is now straightforward:

# Start server with decryption
./target/release/trustedge-server \
  --listen 127.0.0.1:8080 \
  --output-dir ./received_chunks \
  --key-hex <64-char-hex-key> \
  --decrypt --verbose

# Stream a file to the server  
./target/release/trustedge-client \
  --server 127.0.0.1:8080 \
  --file ./sample.wav \
  --key-hex <64-char-hex-key> \
  --verbose

Milestone Progress

✅ M1 Milestone (Format v1) - COMPLETED:

  • Complete .trst envelope format with comprehensive validation
  • Deterministic test vectors with golden hash verification
  • Production-ready client-server network stack
  • Enhanced security with header consistency and strict sequencing
  • Full documentation suite

🚀 M2 Milestone (Key Management) - IN PROGRESS:

  • Key ID fields and rotation foundation
  • Advanced key versioning and migration tools
  • HSM/TPM integration points

📋 M3 Milestone (Verification & QA) - PLANNED:

  • trustedge-verify CLI tool
  • Property-based testing and fuzzing
  • Security audit and performance optimization

Security Focus

TrustEdge takes security seriously. The project now includes a comprehensive threat model covering network, application, cryptographic, side-channel, and physical threats. All validation failures immediately abort processing, ensuring tampered or incorrectly keyed data cannot be processed.

What's Next

The focus is now shifting to advanced key management (M2) and comprehensive verification tooling (M3). The foundation is solid, and the architecture is ready for production-scale deployments.

If you're interested in streaming encryption, network security, or Rust cryptography, check out the detailed documentation and let me know what you think!

Explore TrustEdge on GitHub

This represents a significant evolution from the original file encryption demo to a complete network stack for trustable edge AI. Learning in public continues!