rdblue commented on code in PR #5432:
URL: https://github.com/apache/iceberg/pull/5432#discussion_r1015859348


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format/gcm-stream-spec.md:
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+---
+title: "AES GCM Stream Spec"
+url: gcm-stream-spec
+toc: true
+disableSidebar: true
+---
+<!--
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+
+# AES GCM Stream (AGS) file format extension
+
+## Background and Motivation
+
+Iceberg supports a number of data file formats. Two of these formats (Parquet 
and ORC) have built-in encryption capabilities, that allow to protect sensitive 
information in the data files. However, besides the data files, Iceberg tables 
also have metadata files, that keep sensitive information too (e.g., min/max 
values in manifest files, or bloom filter bitsets in puffin files). Metadata 
file formats (AVRO, JSON, Puffin) don't have encryption support.
+
+Moreover, with the exception of Parquet, no Iceberg data or metadata file 
format supports integrity verification, required for end-to-end tamper proofing 
of Iceberg tables.
+
+This document specifies details of a simple file format extension that adds 
encryption and tamper-proofing to any existing file format.
+
+## Goals
+
+* Metadata encryption: enable encryption of manifests, manifest lists, 
snapshots and stats.
+* Avro data encryption: enable encryption of data files in tables that use the 
Avro format.
+* Tamper proofing of Iceberg data and metadata files.
+
+## Overview
+
+The output stream, produced by a metadata or data writer, is split into 
equal-size blocks (plus residue). Each block is enciphered (encrypted/signed) 
with a given encryption key, and stored in a file in the AGS format. Upon 
reading, the stored cipherblocks are verified for integrity; then decrypted and 
passed to metadata or data readers.
+
+## Encryption algorithm
+
+AGS uses the standard AEG GCM cipher, and supports all AES key sizes: 128, 192 
and 256 bits.
+
+AES GCM is an authenticated encryption. Besides data confidentiality 
(encryption), it supports two levels of integrity verification 
(authentication): of the data (default), and of the data combined with an 
optional AAD (“additional authenticated data”). An AAD is a free text to be 
authenticated, together with the data. The structure of AGS AADs is described 
below.
+
+AES GCM requires a unique vector to be provided for each encrypted block. In 
this document, the unique input to GCM encryption is called nonce (“number used 
once”). AGS encryption uses the RBG-based (random bit generator) nonce 
construction as defined in the section 8.2.2 of the NIST SP 800-38D document. 
For each encrypted block, AGS generates a unique nonce with a length of 12 
bytes (96 bits).
+
+## Format specification
+
+### File structure
+
+The AGS-encrypted files have the following structure
+
+```
+Magic BlockLength CipherBlock₁ CipherBlock₂ ... CipherBlockₙ
+```
+
+where
+
+- `Magic` is four bytes 0x41, 0x47, 0x53, 0x31 ("AGS1", short for: AES GCM 
Stream, version 1)
+- `BlockLength` is four bytes (little endian) integer keeping the length of 
the equal-size split blocks before encryption. The length is specified in bytes.
+- `CipherBlockᵢ` is the i-th enciphered block in the file, with the structure 
defined below.
+
+### Cipher Block structure
+
+Cipher blocks have the following structure
+
+| nonce | ciphertext | tag |
+|-------|------------|-----|
+
+where
+
+- `nonce` is the AES GCM nonce, with a length of 12 bytes.
+- `ciphertext` is the encrypted block. Its length is identical to the length 
of the block before encryption ("plaintext"). The length of all plaintext 
blocks, except the last, is `BlockLength` bytes. The last block keeps the data 
residue, with a length <= `BlockLength`.
+- `tag` is the AES GCM tag, with a length of 16 bytes.
+
+AGS encrypts all blocks by the GCM cipher, without padding. The AES GCM cipher 
must be implemented by a cryptographic provider according to the NIST SP 
800-38D specification. In AGS, an input to the GCM cipher is an AES encryption 
key, a nonce, a plaintext and an AAD (described below). The output is a 
ciphertext with the length equal to that of plaintext, and a 16-byte 
authentication tag used to verify the ciphertext and AAD integrity.
+
+### Additional Authenticated Data
+
+The AES GCM cipher protects against byte replacement inside a ciphertext block 
- but, without an AAD, it can't prevent replacement of one ciphertext block 
with another (encrypted with the same key). AGS leverages AADs to protect 
against swapping ciphertext blocks inside a file or between files. AGS can also 
protect against swapping full files - for example, replacement of a metadata 
file with an old version. AADs are built to reflects the identity of a file and 
of the blocks inside the file.
+
+AGS constructs a block AAD from two components: an AAD prefix - a string 
provided by Iceberg for the file (with the file ID), and an AAD suffix - the 
block sequence number in the file, as an int in a 4-byte little-endian form. 
The block AAD is a direct concatenation of the prefix and suffix parts.

Review Comment:
   Sounds fine. We'll need to solve that problem eventually though.



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