[OAUTH-WG] Comments on Assertions draft 00 by Yaron Goland

Mike Jones <Michael.Jones@microsoft.com> Wed, 10 August 2011 21:39 UTC

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From: Mike Jones <Michael.Jones@microsoft.com>
To: "oauth@ietf.org" <oauth@ietf.org>
Thread-Topic: Comments on Assertions draft 00 by Yaron Goland
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Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 21:39:58 +0000
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Subject: [OAUTH-WG] Comments on Assertions draft 00 by Yaron Goland
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Author List:  Change "MSFT" to "Microsoft" (twice).

Author List:  Change "Yaron Goland" to "Yaron Y. Goland".

2.  Overview:  Change "privliged" to "privileged".

2.  Overview:  Change "messsage" to "message".

3.  Authentication vs. Authorization:  Add a period after "vs" so the title becomes "Authentication vs. Authorization"

3.  Authentication vs. Authorization:  Comment on words "single assertion":  "This sentence implies that a system could issue two tokens, one for authentication and a separate one for authorization. While this is certainly possible does anyone actually do that? If not then perhaps it's not worth calling out?"

4.1. Using Assertions for Client Authentication:  Comment on "client_id":  "It seems like a bad idea to have the client_id outside of the assertion. It's either redundant or insecure."

4.1. Using Assertions for Client Authentication:  Change "a Authorization Code" to "an Authorization Code".

4.2. Using Assertions as Authorization Grants:  Delete ", without direct user approval", per comment "This fragment sounds slimy and isn't all that relevant so I would suggest omitting it."

4.2. Using Assertions as Authorization Grants:  Comment on "client_id":  "This seems like a bug. Why is there a client_id? In any scenario I can come up with that would use an assertion all data needed to identifying the caller is provided (securely) in the assertion itself. So at best requiring client_id is just redundant and redundancy in protocols just opens up new places to have problems.  So I would suggest that we require that assertions MUST identify the client and therefore the requests MUST NOT include client_id."

5.  In title, change "Proccessing" to "Processing".

5.1. Assertion Metamodel:  Audience:  Change "the Authorization Server as the intended audience" to "the party intended to process the token", per the comment "It's generally not considered good form to write a definition that contains the word being defined.".

5.2. General Assertion Format and Processing Rules:  Change "a Assertion ID" to "an Assertion ID" and change "algortihm" to "algorithm" and change "generate assertion" to "generate the assertion".

6.1. Client authentication:  Change "as in a format" to "in a format".

6.1. Client authentication:  Comment on last 4 bullets:  "This is all redundant with section 5.2. I think it's not a great idea to repeat normative requirements as it just opens the door for confusion and inconsistency. So I would urge that we remove these lines and just point to section 5.2."

6.1. Client authentication:  Change "a client authenticating" to "a client authentication" and change "a Authorization Code" to "an Authorization Code".

6.2. Client acting on behalf of itself:  Change "analagous" to "analogous".

6.2. Client acting on behalf of itself:  Comment on last 4 bullets:  "Again, I would just point to section 5.2."

6.3. Client acting on behalf of a user:  Comment on last 4 bullets:  "Same comment as before".

6.3. Client acting on behalf of a user:  Change "a Authorization Code" to "an Authorization Code".

6.4. Client acting on behalf of an anonymous user: Change "authorizaion" to "authorization".

7.  Error Responses:  Comment on "Audience validation failed": "Isn't returning this kind of information just helping an attacker to hone their attack by trying various values and seeing what errors they get? I'm not sure how serious this threat is though. But I get nervous any time we leak data about security validation failures."