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Subject: RE: [wsrp] Issue #28: Replace EventDescription.requiresSecureDistribution?
- From: Rich Thompson <richt2@us.ibm.com>
- To: wsrp@lists.oasis-open.org
- Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 11:37:21 -0500
I find your argument interesting, but
it ignores situations where the Producer is legally bound to restrict the
distribution of data (e.g. privacy laws in much of Europe). In this case,
security is not required because the application thinks it is appropriate,
but because legal issues related to the data's source apply.
I would agree with those that have stated
that something like WS-Policy would be a better place to carry this type
of information, but since it is not yet ready for us to leverage, I introduced
this boolean in same the manner v1 did for requiring secure distribution
of markup. I am open to other solutions for allowing the Producer to assert
control over the security level required to (re)distribute an event and/or
its data. Andre has offered such a proposal ... others?
Rich
"Yossi Tamari"
<yossi@giloventures.com>
12/20/2004 06:13 AM
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Subject
| RE: [wsrp] Issue #28: Replace
EventDescription.requiresSecureDistribution? |
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Hi Rich,
I think this brings out some
of the problems in this approach.
For example, your wording bellow
can be interpreted to say that the event data is secure, but the fact that
the event fired is not. Obviously this is not always the case.
Personally I think that for
consumers that manipulate the content of the event, there should not be
a “must not” or even “should not” statement, because somebody is developing
an “application” that understands the nature of the data that he is receiving
and sending, and it is up to that developer to integrate the security considerations.
(An example of such use case
would be a raised event that contains a user name and email, where the
user name does not need security but his email does.)
For basic event consumers I
would say that even the fact that the event was raised should not be exposed
on an insecure channel.
Another question is what happens
when a consumer distributes a requiresSecureDistribution event on a secure
channel to another producer, which then (not knowing that this data is
actually considered secured) raises a non requiresSecureDistribution event
containing parts of the data?
Ideally I would like use to
drop this field altogether and leave the security of any element in the
SOAP message to lower levels of the SOAP stack (WS-Policy?). I am not sure
if this is currently viable here. Any thoughts?
Yossi.
From: Rich Thompson [mailto:richt2@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 4:31 PM
To: wsrp@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [wsrp] Issue #28: Replace EventDescription.requiresSecureDistribution?
One area that is not reflected in the current draft, nor considered in
Andre's alternate proposal, is that the resulting security level needed
for distributing an event applies not only to directly distributing the
event as the portlet has generated it, but also becomes the minimum for
the distribution of any information contained within the event which the
Consumer might distribute in some other event it composes. I'll add language
to this effect to draft 04 and would also plan to include it if the mechanism
is changed to Andre's proposal.
Rich
Rich Thompson/Watson/IBM@IBMUS
12/16/2004 08:29 AM
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Subject
| RE: [wsrp] Issue #28: Replace
EventDescription.requiresSecureDistribution? |
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I have opened issue #28 for this topic. Basically we have two proposals
in front of us:
1. Have requiresSecureDistribution fields on both the EventDescription
and Event structures. This presumes that non-secure distribution is allowed
unless the portlet has said otherwise using these flags.
2. Have authorizedNonSecureDistribution field on just the Event structure.
This requires that the Consumer distribute events in as secure manner as
it received them unless this field has been set to true (default = false).
What do people think of these two choices?
Rich
Andre Kramer <andre.kramer@eu.citrix.com>
12/16/2004 04:47 AM
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| RE: [wsrp] EventDescription.requiresSecureDistribution |
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The markup related fields you mention speak more about user agent to consumer
communications than WSRP protocol security to me. My concern still is that
we are adding security protocol (which we usually tend to avoid) and that
this could lead to problems for 2.0 implementation and continuing down
the road (when we have message based security and policy negotiation).
If we really need the functionality you describe below would the following
not be simpler?
AuthorizeInsecureRedistribution : Boolean flag on Event objects (default
false). If a consumer receives an event with this flag set to true and
the consumer can verify that the flag is as the producer set it (i.e. was
not tampered with, for example because the event was signed by the producer
and the consumer verified the signature or was received over a secure end-to-end
transport) then the event MAY be re-distributed to other portlets over
an insecure communications channel. Such explicit downgrading of security
by a producer/portlet should be used with care. Note, consumers may redistribute
an event received on an insecure channel regardless of the value of this
flag. [The event description flag would go.]
Sorry keep laboring the point but security is extremely important to get
right.
Regards,
Andre
From: Rich Thompson [mailto:richt2@us.ibm.com]
Sent: 15 December 2004 18:08
To: wsrp@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [wsrp] EventDescription.requiresSecureDistribution
It was commented at the F2F that much as we have these fields relative
to markup, we would need them for events. Without much discussion, everyone
agreed and my notes say to add the fields. I think the following may provide
a base use case for them:
A Consumer incorporates a pair of remote portlets (P1 & P2) on a page
where:
P1: The Producer only offers unsecure ports (e.g. http)
P2: The Producer only offers secure ports (e.g. https)
1. If P2 generates an event that does not require secure communication
during distribution, how to tell the Consumer?
2. If P1 generates an event that it determines does need secure communications
and determines it can securely send it to the Consumer (either by network
topology or message security), can it insist that it only be distributed
in a secure manner?
Obviously a Producer offering both types of ports just complicates the
logic (but not the fundamental questions) by throwing in the question of
whether of not the transport layer will make the current communications
with the Consumer secure. Message level security just adds another equivalent
wrinkle to the logic side of things.
I think both of the above situations will happen and that the protocol
should make it easy to signal to the Consumer the security concerns related
to distributing an event. I suppose we could remove the field from the
event description and require on the event, but this would move valuable
information from design time to runtime.
Rich
Andre Kramer <andre.kramer@eu.citrix.com>
12/15/2004 11:52 AM
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| RE: [wsrp] EventDescription.requiresSecureDistribution |
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A producer that wishes to return an event securely can not publish a http
binding (i.e. only an https binding so that SOAP responses are secured)
if transport level security is to be used, or use message level security
for responses. Given we start from this position, is it not more a question
of the producer possibly granting the consumer the right to forward an
event on a less secure channel? How useful is such a feature as opposed
to just mandating that a securely returned event be always forwarded securely?
I think the end goal should be for end to end security to be used to secure
the event payload so do we really need these flags?
Regards,
Andre
From: Rich Thompson [mailto:richt2@us.ibm.com]
Sent: 15 December 2004 15:07
To: wsrp@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [wsrp] EventDescription.requiresSecureDistribution
Rereading this on the OASIS distribution reminded why the event field did
not have a default specified in the schema ... its default is whatever
was specified in the EventDescription.
Rich
Rich Thompson/Watson/IBM@IBMUS
12/15/2004 09:20 AM
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| Re: [wsrp] EventDescription.requiresSecureDistribution |
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Good point on the possibility of tampering ... I'll add a sentence in section
9 of draft 04 to point this out.
The reason the field exists in both places is that some events will always
require secure distribution and some will only require it when sensitive
information is being carried in the payload (i.e. dynamic payload contents).
We deliberately named the equivalent fields in v1 as simply requiring security.
This allows evolving security standards to be used as they become supported.
Thanks for catching the .xsd overlook of the default value. Has been updated
relative to the next version.
Rich
Andre Kramer <andre.kramer@eu.citrix.com>
12/10/2004 05:15 AM
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| [wsrp] EventDescription.requiresSecureDistribution |
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We should note that basing
security decisions
on
EventDescription.requiresSecureDistribution
only makes sense if the EventDescription
was itself was
retrieved securely.
The
threat
here
being
Tampering.
I do not
see why we would want to
duplicate
the flag in the Event
type itself, even if we include it in
the event
metadata.
IMHO
A consumer should either use (securely
determined) metadata to
determine
the security level
for event transmission
or use the same security level
at which an event was received to re-distribute
the event (Event.RequiresSecureRedistribution?).
Would it be simpler to use the same rule as
for getMarkup to distribute all events? i.e.
If a producer
publishes a secure binding (i.e.
SSL) then the consumer should make use
of it? Or, better, provide
and encourage
means for the event data to be signed/encrypted
by sending portlets?
Regards,
Andre
PS.
In any case,
the
Event.requiresSecure(Re)Distribution declaration
XML
schema
could do with a default="false"
to match the
EventDescription convention.
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