Re: [OAUTH-WG] New Version Notification for draft-hunt-oauth-v2-user-a4c-00.txt

>From what I read, you've defined something that uses an OAuth 2 code flow to get an extra token which is specified as a JWT. You named it "session_token" instead of "id_token", and you've left off the User Information Endpoint -- but other than that, this is exactly the Basic Client for OpenID Connect. In other words, if you change the names on things you've got OIDC, but without the capabilities to go beyond a very basic "hey there's a user here" claim. This is the same place that OpenID 2.0 started, and it was very, very quickly extended with SREG, AX, PAPE, and others for it to be useful in the real world of distributed logins. You've also left out discovery and registration which are required for distributed deployments, but I'm guessing that those would be modular components that could be added in (like they are in OIDC).

I've heard complaints that OIDC is complicated, but it's really not. Yes, I agree that the giant stack of documents is intimidating and in my opinion it's a bit of a mess with Messages and Standard split up (but I lost that argument years ago). However, at the core, you've got an OAuth2 authorization server that spits out access tokens and id tokens. The id token is a JWT with some known claims (iss, sub, etc) and is issued along side the access token, and its audience is the *client* and not the *protected resource*. The access token is a regular old access token and its format is undefined (so you can use it with an existing OAuth2 server setup, like we have), and it can be used at the User Info Endpoint to get profile information about the user who authenticated. It could also be used for other services if your AS/IdP protects multiple things.

So I guess what I'm missing is what's the value proposition in this spec when we have something that can do this already? And this doesn't seem to do anything different (apart from syntax changes)?

 -- Justin

On Jul 29, 2013, at 4:14 AM, Phil Hunt <phil.hunt@oracle.com<mailto:phil.hunt@oracle.com>> wrote:

FYI.  I have been noticing a substantial number of sites acting as OAuth Clients using OAuth to authenticate users.

I know several of us have blogged on the issue over the past year so I won't re-hash it here.  In short, many of us recommended OIDC as the correct methodology.

Never-the-less, I've spoken with a number of service providers who indicate they are not ready to make the jump to OIDC, yet they agree there is a desire to support authentication only (where as OIDC does IDP-like services).

This draft is intended as a minimum authentication only specification.  I've tried to make it as compatible as possible with OIDC.

For now, I've just posted to keep track of the issue so we can address at the next re-chartering.

Happy to answer questions and discuss.

Phil

@independentid
www.independentid.com<http://www.independentid.com/>
phil.hunt@oracle.com<mailto:phil.hunt@oracle.com>

Begin forwarded message:

From: internet-drafts@ietf.org<mailto:internet-drafts@ietf.org>
Subject: New Version Notification for draft-hunt-oauth-v2-user-a4c-00.txt
Date: 29 July, 2013 9:49:41 AM GMT+02:00
To: Phil Hunt <phil.hunt@yahoo.com<mailto:phil.hunt@yahoo.com>>, Phil Hunt <None@ietfa.amsl.com<mailto:None@ietfa.amsl.com>>, Phil Hunt <>

A new version of I-D, draft-hunt-oauth-v2-user-a4c-00.txt
has been successfully submitted by Phil Hunt and posted to the
IETF repository.

Filename: draft-hunt-oauth-v2-user-a4c
Revision: 00
Title: OAuth 2.0 User Authentication For Client
Creation date: 2013-07-29
Group: Individual Submission
Number of pages: 9
URL:             http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-hunt-oauth-v2-user-a4c-00.txt
Status:          http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hunt-oauth-v2-user-a4c
Htmlized:        http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hunt-oauth-v2-user-a4c-00

Abstract:
  This specification defines a new OAuth2 endpoint that enables user
  authentication session information to be shared with client
  applications.

Please note that it may take a couple of minutes from the time of submission
until the htmlized version and diff are available at tools.ietf.org<http://tools.ietf.org/>.

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