Subject: [seamoby] RE: Authentication & Authorization "in-the-large" was Re: [seamob y] ct problem statement

From: Nakhjiri Madjid-MNAKHJI1 <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 14:56:53 -0500

Pat, 

Before you kill this thread :) Since I started this, I want to clearify
why we started the thread.

This originally was not about weak or strong authentication, as much
as it gets people excited. This was about 2 things.

1-How to prevent a pre-authenticated AR from doing unauthorized CT DoS.
	
2- Why some people think authentication is not important, while
authorization
is central for CT.

If people cannot contribute to the CT DoS discussion, I suggest they
do cryptography discussion to a security mailing list, before Pat kills
this thread.

We are just trying to get CT PS ready for shipping.

Thank you,
Madjid

-----Original Message-----
From: Pat Calhoun [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 2:04 PM
To: Arthur Ross
Cc: Pat Calhoun; Charlie Perkins; Kulwinder Atwal; 'seamoby';
[email-masked]
Subject: Re: Authentication & Authorization "in-the-large" was Re:
[seamoby] ct problem statement

On Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 11:30:21AM -0700, Arthur Ross wrote:
> Au contraire, Pat -

Je ne pense pas.

> I keep thinking that a good illustrative, prehistoric
example/philosophical
> model of the kind of thing I am thinking of is the ol' Unix heirarchical
> file system. Everything has a nonad [a word I just invented, meaning
"group
> of nine"] of priviledge flags, corresponding to all possible combinations
> of {read,modify,execute} with {owner, group, world}. In this view,
> authentication determines which of the three categories an supplicant
> belongs to, and authorization says which of the three actions he can
> perform. Attached are the owner and group IDs.

I wonder why this thread even exists, but I find myself having to correct
your example above. The very fact that a set of permissions have been setup
on a file is NOT authentication. Before I even get access to the said files,
there is another program, Unix login, which checks my credentials, and then
executes the shell with my user and group id. Requesting access to the file
is an authorization decision on the part of the OS. Do I have access to the
file?
What is my user id? group id?

Obviously, we aren't going to agree on the very fundamental difference
between
authorization and authentication, and we can just agree to disagree.

PatC

---

From: Pat Calhoun <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 12:56:17 -0700

> why we started the thread.

of course. My intention was not to kill the whole thread, just the
definition wars that are going on :)

> as it gets people excited. This was about 2 things.
right

> 1-How to prevent a pre-authenticated AR from doing unauthorized CT DoS.

I would claim that such events are unlikely to happen. When a user wants to move
from one service area to another, the spectrum will be overlapping. The operators
of these networks will allow/disallow CT between the routers handling these
service areas. If they permit it, then will ensure that secure communication
is available between them.

> 2- Why some people think authentication is not important, while

In this particular case, they MAY be one and the same. For example, while setting
up the security association between the routers, additional configuration
MAY be possible to limit the types of CT blobs that will be accepted.

[note I used blob to imply the application blob being transferred]

> do cryptography discussion to a security mailing list, before Pat kills

Sorry, please see above :(

> We are just trying to get CT PS ready for shipping.

Of course :)

PatC