xacml message

Subject: RE: [xacml] Potential SAML issues

From: Hal Lockhart <hal.lockhart@entegrity.com>
To: 'Sekhar Vajjhala - Sun Microsystems' <sekhar.vajjhala@sun.com>,NISHIMURA Toshihiro <nishimura.toshi@jp.fujitsu.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 13:58:50 -0500

Title: RE: [xacml] Potential SAML issues

> > As for J2SE case, I think there is an issue in terminology.
> > Sekhar wrote::
> > |     A J2SE permission consists of
> > |
> > |     a. target   ("resource" in XACML terminology )
> > |     b. action   (optional)
> > (http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/xacml/200112/msg00045.html)
> >
> > In the example of FilePermission, everyone will agreee on that
> > "/tmp/*" indicates resources(targets) and "read,write" indicates
> > action(s).

By all means let's use the correct terminology. In Java, (J2SE and J2EE) there are actually three things about Permission

1. The subclass of Permission e.g. FilePermission, BasicPermission
2. The Name of the permission which is a string
3. The Actions which is represented as a string and is not present in some subclasses

Without specifying the subclass, the Name and Actions are essentially meaningless. Even if you know the subclass, the key semantics are encapsulated in the implies method. For example, I can create a JohnBirchPermission in which the "ACLUMember" name implies the "Communist" name.

Hal