Title:
The wsrp list it is ...
I would like to avoid diving into the whole security discussion again ...
that is why at the end I tried [poorly] to distill the question down to how
can a consumer indicate that it provides user categories for interactions
where it doesn't know the identity of the user? Or put another way, how
does the consumer provide information to the producer so it can decide the
consumers intent on how an anonymous user can control the preferences of
the entity? I don't think the consumer should manufacture [on its own] a
dummy user context key for this. Rather it should have the ability to clearly
communicate this circumstance -- however, given where we are in the specification
process however we have to look for ways of working within the structure
we have -- hence I focus on defining a consistent representation of this
dummy user context key so this particular situation can/will be represented
in an interoperable way. I suggested "" to avoid collisions with any name
the consumer might consider valid in its environment.
-Mike-
Rich Thompson wrote:
How about we just carry this thread on
the wsrp list rather than many people getting duplicate emails?
I think there are some significant issues
with interpreting application data items as supplying security information
rather than actually using whatever might be available from security subsystems.
While on the surface your suggestion might appear reasonable, how does it
play out against the standard man-in-the-middle attack mode that security
people work hard to stop?
Rich Thompson
Michael Freedman <>
07/15/2003 03:27 PM
To: wsrp-interop
<>
cc: WSRP <>
Subject: [wsrp] Dealing
with unauthenticated users
I have cc'd this e-mail to the entier list because I
think folks might
be interested in general -- I apologize up front if this is something
you don't want to see.
We have discussed that though the specification doesn't define the
UserContext [userContextKey and userCategories] as carrying security
information, we expect some producers to use this application level
information to satisfy its needs. Currently, the userContextKey is a
required field. Hence the current way a consumer indicates it doesn't
know the users identity is by passing a null userContext. This however
prevents the consumer from defining/mapping user categories to
unauthenticated/unknown users. However consumers often represent this
class of user just so some control can be defined on this class. For
example, control as represented by wsrp:minimal user category.
So the questions is, do we want to support defining/using user
categories on public/guest users? If so, how do we deal with the
producer/JSR 168 interoperability problem wherein the producer uses the
userContext/userContextKey field to establish whether its communicating
with an authenticated user [through its trust relationship with the
consumer]? Wouldn't we need to define a special token value for
userContextKey that all producers could safely use to mean the
application hasn't established the identity of the user but oh by the
way here are the user categories that relate to anyonymous users? I
would suggest we use the convention that an empty string "" as the
userContextKey indicates such a user. What do others think?
-Mike-
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