Subject: [TLS] Review of draft-housley-tls-authz-extns-05

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 11:00:52 +0300

The part about X.509 attribute certificates looks fine, but
at least the SAML part still needs some work:

1) I think the document needs to discuss the security considerations
   of bearer SAML assertions in more detail. While the countermeasures
   described in 3.3.2 may help against passive eavesdroppers, they 
   still allow an active MiTM to "steal" the permission. This is IMHO 
   a significant difference to typical SAML usage with HTTP-over-TLS,
   where the server is authenticated before the bearer assertion is
   sent.

2) Section 3.3.2: "When SAMLAssertion is used, the field contains XML 
   constructs with a nested structure defined in [SAML1.1][SAML2.0]."
   This needs to be much more specific than "some XML from these 
   documents". What element/elements? Is this an XML document
   (with XML declaration etc.), or just a "fragment"? Which encoding? 
   And so on...

3) The document is last called for Proposed Standard, but contains
   a normative reference to Informational RFC (RFC 2704). I'd 
   suggest removing the KeyNote stuff from this document (if someone
   really wants to do KeyNote, it can be a separate document).

Minor editorial comments:

4) Section 2.3: the list type is "AuthorizationDataFormats" but
   enum is spelled "AuthzDataFormat".

Best regards,
Pasi

_______________________________________________
TLS mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tls

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 18:02:02 -0400

>    where the server is authenticated before the bearer assertion is

Does this proposed text solve your concern?

    The use of bearer SAML assertions allows an eavesdropper or a
    man-in-the-middle to capture the SAML assertion and try to reuse
    it in another context.  The constraints discussed in Section 3.3.2
    might be effective against an eavesdropper, but they are less likely
    to be effective against a man-in-the-middle.  Authentication of both
    parties in the TLS session, which involves the use of client
    authentication, will prevent an undetected man-in the-middle, and
    the use of the double handshake illustrated in Figure 2 will prevent
    the disclosure of the bearer SAML assertion to any party other than
    the TLS peer.

>    (with XML declaration etc.), or just a "fragment"? Which encoding?

Does this proposed text solve your concern?

    When SAMLAssertion is used, the field contains an XML-encoded
    <Assertion> element using the AssertionType complex type as
    defined in [SAML1.1][SAML2.0].

>    really wants to do KeyNote, it can be a separate document).

Draft -06 was posted to remove all references to KeyNote.

>    enum is spelled "AuthzDataFormat".

This was fixed in draft -06 too.

Russ