Trust Boundaries

QNSP defines explicit trust boundaries between components.

External boundary

The edge gateway is the sole external entry point:

• TLS termination
• Authentication validation
• Rate limiting
• WAF and bot protection

Internal boundaries

Service-to-service

• Internal services trust edge gateway authentication
• Service tokens for internal calls
• mTLS in production deployments

Enclave boundary

• Sensitive operations in TEE enclaves
• Attestation required for enclave access
• Key material never leaves enclave

HSM boundary

• Root keys stored in HSM
• PKCS#11 interface
• Key operations within HSM

Trust assumptions

• Edge gateway is trusted to authenticate requests
• Services trust token claims after validation
• HSM/enclave attestation is verified
• Audit logs are append-only