Re: [OAUTH-WG] problem statement

[Michael Thomas <[e-mail]>]

Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:
> I'm dismissive of this being an OAuth problem. 

Which brings us back to my original problem: what is the problem it's trying to solve?
What are the assumptions it makes? What is its applicability? None of those are addressed
very well if at all in the drafts. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who would be very
surprised to hear that using oauth on a phone app is a bad idea.

Put it this way: your favorite example of a photo printing service needing access to flickr.
It's ok if you do that from a browser, but not if the photo printer makes an app. How many users,
exactly, are going to know that they shouldn't do the second one?

I think that's an oauth problem because oauth makes it *seem* like you're protected from
the third party, whereas if the app itself asked for your login credentials there would
be far less confusion. So in that sense, oauth is making things worse, not better.

Mike

> 
> EHL
> 
> On Sep 6, 2011, at 11:35, "Michael Thomas" <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>> Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:
>>> Don't install crap on you device or computer. OAuth is the least of your concern if you install bad software. 
>>>
>>> If there was a solution to this we would not need an antivirus. 
>> How exactly does an end user know what is "crap" or not? Or are you just dismissive of apps in
>> general? I don't think that apple and google are going to close up shop because it breaks oauth's
>> trust model.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>> EHL 
>>>
>>> On Sep 6, 2011, at 11:23, "Michael Thomas" <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:
>>>>> I agree. If you are going to install a native app, you better trust it not to do bad things. Grabbing your password is the least interesting thing such an app can abuse. I don't see any need to change the v2 draft. 
>>>> How, exactly, is the user supposed to protect themselves against rogue apps?
>>>> It sounds like the solution is to tell them to never use oauth in an app at all.
>>>>
>>>> Is oauth only intended to be used on standalone trustable web browsers? I don't recall
>>>> seeing that anywhere.
>>>>
>>>> Mike
>>>>
>>>>> EHL
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sep 6, 2011, at 11:10, "Igor Faynberg" <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Mike,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You've got the problem statement right: allowing the user to authorize  
>>>>>> resource access to another party without divulging user's credentials is 
>>>>>> the objective of OAuth. You are also right in that the attack you have 
>>>>>> described defies the whole purpose of OAuth.  I do not think though that 
>>>>>> it is related to OAuth per se.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To this end, the security work led by Torsten has thoroughly analyzed 
>>>>>> the protocol and specified protection against multiple protocol 
>>>>>> attacks.  From what you described, it appears to me that the attack you 
>>>>>> mention is not related to the protocol but rather to the user's 
>>>>>> environment.  There is no possible protection from key loggers that a 
>>>>>> protocol can implement. I could be mistaken; in any case, it looks like 
>>>>>> the problem rests with the implementation of WebView.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If I am wrong, I would appreciate a detailed description of what happened.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Igor
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 9/6/2011 1:40 PM, Michael Thomas wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Barry suggested that I might subscribe and explain what I sent him.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> My basic problem is that in neither the protocol nor the threats drafts,
>>>>>>> I can't seem to find what problem is actually trying to be solved with
>>>>>>> oauth, and what assumptions you're making about various elements.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Here's what I did. I've written an app, and I wanted re-integrate the
>>>>>>> ability to send tweets after they deprecated Basic. So the app has a
>>>>>>> webView (android, iphone...) which it obviously completely controls.
>>>>>>> With oauth, the webview UA will ultimately redirect off to Twitter's
>>>>>>> site to collect the user's credentials and grant my app's backend an
>>>>>>> access token (sorry if I get terminology screwed up, i'm just coming
>>>>>>> up to speed).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What occurs to me is that webview affords exactly zero protection from
>>>>>>> my client (ie, the app) from getting the user's twitter credentials. All
>>>>>>> I have to do is set up a keypress handler on that webview and in a few
>>>>>>> minutes of hacking I have a key logger. etc.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So what I can't tell is whether this is a "problem" or not, because I
>>>>>>> don't know what problem you're trying to solve. If the object of oauth
>>>>>>> isn't to keep user/server credentials out of the hands of a third party,
>>>>>>> then what is it trying to solve? Is there an expectation that the
>>>>>>> UA is trusted by the user/server? What happens when that's not the case?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regardless of whether I'm misunderstanding, it would sure be nice to have
>>>>>>> both the problem and your assumptions laid out, hopefully with some 
>>>>>>> prominence
>>>>>>> so you don't get these sort of dumb questions.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Mike
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