[Openid-specs-heart] HEART Profiles - OpenID Connect Certification

Justin Richer jricher at mit.edu
Tue Dec 1 17:25:38 UTC 2015


On Dec 1, 2015, at 12:11 PM, Adrian Gropper <agropper at healthurl.com> wrote:
> 
> This is a subthread specific to the OIDC Certification issues in the 3 profiles currently up for discussion.

OIDC certification has nothing to do with HEART compliance, except that possible future HEART certification systems will follow that model. We’re not requiring compliance with OIDC Certification, especially not for the Oauth2 profile.

> 
> I'm trying to understand the HEART profile for OAuth 2.0 has numerous mentions of OpenID Connect including: 
> "The authorization server MUST provide an OpenID Connect service discovery endpoint listing the components relevant to the OAuth protocol:"
> as it relates to real-world implementations of an authorization server in the context of the HEART Use Cases.

Again, I ask you to point out the “numerous mentions” and why those are problems as I’ve already explained why we’re using the discovery service from OIDC.

> 
> The OpenID Certification page http://openid.net/certification/ <http://openid.net/certification/> lists both Google and MITREid Connect. The key difference seems to be that OP Dynamic is not implemented by Google. 
> 
> In the context of building a resource owner's authorization server like HIE of One, the AS wants to make it easy and clear as it decides to add trusted OPs to its OP whitelist. 
> 
> Adding Google as an OP is certainly fussy. The steps involve access by the RO to a Credentials Page on their OP as detailed https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/OpenIDConnect?hl=en <https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/OpenIDConnect?hl=en> This is hardly a good user experience for a consumer that simply want to tell her authorization server to trust Google as a source of user authentication. 

Agreed, but that’s something to bug Google about. It also means that you’ll be shipping your client credentials around with each copy of “HIE Of One” if you don’t want the individual copies to re-register by hand. 

Furthermore, Google doesn’t support the private_key_jwt method required by HEART at the moment anyway, so it’s a bit of a moot point.

> 
> I presume that OPs that implement OP Dynamic such as MITREid Connect improve the fussy Google user experience. Let's consider a hospital called NPE (the resource server) that is willing to act as source of user authentication for access to their HEART-compliant API. 
> 1 - Alice (RO) would start by logging in to the NPE (RS) patient portal
> 2 - Alice would provide the RS with something like a URI or an email address that enables the HEART-compliant RS to discover Alice's HEART-compliant AS (HIE of One).
> 3 - Alice's AS would put up some kind of authorization form listing NPE as a willing OP Dynamic identity provider for any provider that NPE is willing to take responsibility for authenticating.
> 4 - If Alice approves, this authorization form, then NPE is added to her AS whitelist of OPs.
> 

That would work, but I don’t think it’s a full information flow. I know you’re not trying to show details here but I think that’s going to be required for this proposed system to be real. Best way to do that? Build it and run it! Also, it doesn’t mean that it’s whitelisted, it just means that it’s usable after being discovered and registered. This can all be done alongside statically registered systems, too. A whitelist means that users aren’t prompted for decisions, but if someone else on Alice’s  OP logs in, you’d want to prompt them.

> If we're all together this far, we come up with some clarifying questions:
> 
> A - Why doesn't any well-known name on the OpenID Certified list implement OP Dynamic?

They have a belief that they don’t have to: all the RPs will come to them and they can control the dynamic. There are spurious justifications for this at most providers.

> 
> B - If HIE of One could get the Django help we need to implement OP Dynamic would the sequence 1-4 above be testable against healthauth.org <http://healthauth.org/> with (alice/wonderland)?

Probably.

> 
> C - When RSs implement the HEART profiles as currently proposed, will it be possible for Alice's AS to combine the authorization for NPE OP registration and NPE resource registration into a single form such as: 
> 
> <image.png>
> ?

The short answer is yes. You’re conflating the form and the functionality that it provides. One form can trigger many things with the right server. 

 — Justin

> 
> Adrian
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Adrian Gropper MD
> 
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