[OpenID] TLAs

Dick Hardt dick.hardt at gmail.com
Tue Sep 16 16:36:25 UTC 2008


List the ones you don't know on this thread and we can define them.

-- Dick

On 16-Sep-08, at 9:20 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> Sorry to change the subject a little... I'm new to this list and to
> the whole OpenID concept. I am having trouble following the
> conversation because of the number of TLAs that are being thrown
> about. I'm not asking that anyone change, of course... but is there a
> decent glossary of these terms out there for a newbie?
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Kelly
>
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 10:13 AM, George Fletcher <gffletch at aol.com>  
> wrote:
>> Great points about PKI and best practices. +1 for a 'standard way'  
>> to do
>> it:)
>>
>> Full XRDS allows for the inclusion of public keys and signing the  
>> XRDS
>> document... so that would be one path. It could also be that the ORG
>> asserting membership would publish it's public key is a well known
>> location. In SAML this data is included in the SAML metadata  
>> document.
>>
>> Also, Patrick Harding from Ping Identity has suggested signing the
>> document containing the public key and then allowing the RP to use  
>> the
>> cert chain to determine if the document is valid within it's  
>> context or
>> not (realizing that in some cases these deployments will be within
>> closed circles of trust).
>>
>> I do think that Shade's comment about revocation of membership is a  
>> good
>> one. These 3rd-party attested attributes need an expiration time.  
>> Also,
>> the update mechanism of AX should allow the attesting party to update
>> the attribute at the user's preferred OP if the membership changes.
>> Though that requires both parties to support the update mechanism.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> George
>>
>>
>> Dick Hardt wrote:
>>> One way of getting the public key would be to include it in the
>>> assertion and have the cert signed by a higher, trusted party.
>>> (typical PKI)
>>>
>>> Unless you use the existing PKI, I don't know of a best practice for
>>> binding domains/URLs to public keys. (there are lots of ways to do  
>>> it,
>>> but what is "best practice"?)
>>>
>>> Personally, I'd like to see a 'standard way' to do it in OpenID that
>>> did NOT use existing PKI. Then we could use PK crypto
>>> for verifying OpenID message signatures and move away from managing
>>> pair wise keys between RP and OP. Currently this is a pipe dream of
>>> course. :-)
>>>
>>> -- Dick
>>>
>>> On 16-Sep-08, at 8:22 AM, Andrew Arnott wrote:
>>>
>>>> I just love a good topic to get the creative juices flowing from so
>>>> many brainy people.  Thanks all for your ideas.
>>>>
>>>> Regarding George's OP identity assertion w/ AX membership
>>>> attribute... How could Org XYZ sign the attribute so that coming  
>>>> from
>>>> some OP it would be a verifiable?  Regarding this loose trust
>>>> relationship between the OP and Org XYZ, what would that  
>>>> constitute?
>>>>
>>>> The few RPs that would be interested in my membership can have
>>>> specially crafted AX fetch requests, no problem.  But these RPs  
>>>> need
>>>> to be able to work against whatever OP the authenticating user
>>>> happens to choose.  If only a few OPs might support these signed AX
>>>> attributes that's fine, as long as the user has a choice and  
>>>> there is
>>>> no strong affiliation between OP, RP and Org.
>>>>
>>>> I wonder if Org could assert my membership with a signed, encoded
>>>> string, including my claimed id whatever that may be, and I take  
>>>> that
>>>> encoded string and AX-store it myself to my arbitrary OP.  Then any
>>>> AX-fetch (with my permission) would retrieve that and the RP could
>>>> check the signature.  The only thing remaining in my mind is how  
>>>> the
>>>> RP could verify the signature.  Can an ordinary public HTTPS server
>>>> cert on Org.com be used to verify a signature if it is signed the
>>>> right way?  Or is there some other way to do that?
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 6:26 AM, George Fletcher <gffletch at aol.com
>>>> <mailto:gffletch at aol.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>    Per Dick's response earlier in the thread, I don't see why using
>>>>    an OP of my choice with a third party asserted attribute of my
>>>>    membership in org XYZ isn't sufficient to meet this use case.
>>>>
>>>>    Basically, I'd use my preferred OP and request the organization
>>>>    to provide a signed attribute of my membership in org XYZ. Then
>>>>    when I log into the RP (with the OP of my choice), it can  
>>>> request
>>>>    this attribute and I can choose to provide it (or not) at time  
>>>> of
>>>>    authentication.
>>>>
>>>>    This should be completely doable with the existing OpenID 2.0  
>>>> and
>>>>    Attribute Exchange specs. Is the issue what Peter mentioned that
>>>>    there aren't many AX supporters right now?
>>>>
>>>>    Of course, there will have to be a "trust relationship" between
>>>>    org XYZ and my preferred OP, but I don't see that trust as any
>>>>    deeper than the "trust relationship" between and RP and an OP.
>>>>
>>>>    Thanks,
>>>>    George
>>>>
>>>>    Andrew Arnott wrote:
>>>>
>>>>        You're affirmative action example is well taken.  Obviously
>>>>        if an OP is the best solution we should go with it.  But  
>>>> just
>>>>        imagine what all these spoons of sugar are going to do to  
>>>> me...
>>>>
>>>>        Suppose I'm a member of 15 organizations (that's
>>>>        conservative) between my professional, social, personal
>>>>        lives.  Some RP could be interested in providing specialized
>>>>        services if I am a member of Org XYZ.  Another RP may offer
>>>>        premium services if I am a member of Org ABC.
>>>>
>>>>        Now if every org I am a member of became an OP, then my
>>>>        identity XRDS file now has at least 15 providers listed.
>>>>         Powerful, perhaps.  Dangerous: yes!!!  If OpenID's weakness
>>>>        already was that if an OP was compromised then all
>>>>        Identifiers that allow that OP's assertions are now
>>>>        compromised, then that weakness is proportional to the  
>>>> number
>>>>        of OPs that are listed in my XRDS file.  I for one do NOT
>>>>        want 15 Providers listed in my XRDS file.  There was a  
>>>> time I
>>>>        thought more was better, and to date I have some 5-6 OPs
>>>>        listed, but I've considered narrowing that down to just 2-3
>>>>        to decrease my risk surface area.
>>>>
>>>>        Using OAuth as a post-authentication step of confirming
>>>>        membership is an interesting idea and should work.  In the
>>>>        end, whether we use OpenID or OAuth, it seems we're mixing
>>>>        authentication and membership, or authorization and
>>>>        membership, in order to just get membership.  Too bad  
>>>> there's
>>>>        not just a way to get "membership".
>>>>
>>>>        Yes, InfoCard managed cards solve this problem, although not
>>>>        as implicitly as I'd like.  I'm hoping OpenID can have a
>>>>        solution of its own.
>>>>
>>>>        On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 5:12 PM, Eran Hammer-Lahav
>>>>        <eran at hueniverse.com <mailto:eran at hueniverse.com>
>>>>        <mailto:eran at hueniverse.com <mailto:eran at hueniverse.com>>>  
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>           This is like applying affirmative action to cooking.  
>>>> "This
>>>>        cake
>>>>           calls for two spoons of sugar but we don't have enough  
>>>> people
>>>>           using lard in cakes, so I am going to use it instead..."
>>>>
>>>>           Looks like they want to use OpenID as an assertion
>>>>        verification
>>>>           protocol, allowing them to confirm that a given user is  
>>>> in
>>>>        fact a
>>>>           member of their organization. If all they want to do is
>>>>        assert the
>>>>           claim, they can use both OAuth and OpenID, each with a
>>>>        different
>>>>           set of extra features. If they use OpenID, a side-effect
>>>>        of this
>>>>           will turn them into an Identity Provider, but if this is
>>>>        not their
>>>>           intention, they should not use that identifier  
>>>> internally, but
>>>>           instead accept OpenID.
>>>>
>>>>           In other words, they should be an OP for assertion
>>>>        verification,
>>>>           and RP for site login.
>>>>
>>>>           EHL
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>           On 9/15/08 4:45 PM, "Andrew Arnott"
>>>>        <andrewarnott at gmail.com <mailto:andrewarnott at gmail.com>
>>>>           <http://andrewarnott@gmail.com <http://gmail.com>>>  
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>               I just spoke with an organization that wants to  
>>>> become a
>>>>               Provider so that other RP web sites can specifically
>>>>        tell if
>>>>               the logging in user is a member of this  
>>>> organization by
>>>>               whether their OpenID Identifier was asserted by that
>>>>        org's OP.
>>>>               Ideally, I'd like this org to choose to be an RP
>>>>        instead of an
>>>>               OP because there are already too many OPs out there
>>>>        and not
>>>>               enough RPs, IMO.
>>>>               How can an RP accept an OpenID Identifier from
>>>>        arbitrary OPs,
>>>>               but at each login determine whether the Identifier
>>>>        represents
>>>>               a user who belongs to a particular Organization?
>>>>         Basically
>>>>               the Organization needs to send an assertion about the
>>>>               Identifier's membership, but only be willing to do so
>>>>        if that
>>>>               identifier is confirmed as having logged in
>>>>        successfully to
>>>>               that RP.  This would be easy to do if that Org was an
>>>>        OP, but
>>>>               I'm trying to reduce the # of reasons to be an OP.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
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