Title:
Unfortunately, RuntimeContext.userAuthentication=wsrp:none isn't good enough.
It doesn't mean that the user identity is undetermined. If merely means
the user wasn't authorized. Some consumer may prefer to implement a form
of "weak" authorization whereby they use a client cookie to infer who the
user is prior to a formal login to present a [partially] customized page.
Weak authorization is represented by sending a UserContext with the userId
and a RuntimeContext.userAuthentication=wsrp:none. Hence we still have the
issue I raised concerning recoginizing the difference between I don't know
this users identity but want to pass user categories that apply to unrecognized
users vs. a real user identity.
-Mike-
Andre Kramer wrote:
We have RuntimeContext.userAuthentication == wsrp:none
to say the user identity is undetermined by a consumer.
Portlets can also use UserProfile info for users.
If none is supplied, the producer should not make any inference on user
identity.
So I would prefer a real user context key and
see no need on agreeing a common value, but had asked for a "portlet is
being shared" flag to signal that a portlet is being multiplexed. Maybe
this expand to cover other common use cases in 2.0 such as "consumer is
hiding end user identity for privacy reasons"?
regards,
Andre
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Freedman [mailto:]
Sent: 15 July 2003 21:44
To:
Subject: Re: [wsrp] Dealing with unauthenticated users
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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