NEW Issue: Lack of Rationale for choices of Authentication for WS-SC operations

["Hal Lockhart" <hlockhar@bea.com>]

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Protocol:  ws-sc  

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/18840/ws-secureconvers
ation-1.3-spec-ed-01-r06-diff.pdf

Artifact:  spec 

Type: design

Title: 

WS-SC defines 4 operations: Issue, Amend, Renew and Cancel. 

In the case of Amend, WS-SC does not specify what Authentication is
required. In the case of Renew, it says the original claims must be
re-authenticated. If the SCT has expired, its key must not be used to
authenticate. The examples for Amend and Renew both show signatures
which use both the long term Token and the SCT.

In the case of Cancel, WS-SC says that the client must provide PoP of
the SCT secret. The example shows only one signature, which uses the
SCT.

It is not clear a) the reason for these choices and b) why they are all
different.


Description: 

For Amend and Renew, it seems to me that the Principle of Perfect
Forward Secrecy suggests that the long term Identity be used in all
these cases to authenticate the client. That way if the SCT secret is
compromised, the request will still be protected. (If the long term
secret is compromised, all bets are off anyway.) 

Also I don't understand why a Cancel requires specifically PoP of the
SCT secret.

Related issues:

78

Proposed Resolution:

Rationalize the choices and provide rationale for them.

Hal