RE: [TLS] Review of draft-housley-tls-authz-extns-05

Great.  I'll make these updates and submit the revised document.

Russ

At 12:18 PM 6/3/2006, Pasi.Eronen@nokia.com wrote:
>Russ Housley wrote:
>
> > >The part about X.509 attribute certificates looks fine, but
> > >at least the SAML part still needs some work:
> > >
> > >1) I think the document needs to discuss the security considerations
> > >    of bearer SAML assertions in more detail. While the
> > >    countermeasures described in 3.3.2 may help against passive
> > >    eavesdroppers, they still allow an active MiTM to "steal" the
> > >    permission.  This is IMHO a significant difference to typical
> > >    SAML usage with HTTP-over-TLS, where the server is
> > >    authenticated before the bearer assertion is sent.
> >
> > Does this proposed text solve your concern?
> >
> >     The use of bearer SAML assertions allows an eavesdropper or a
> >     man-in-the-middle to capture the SAML assertion and try to reuse
> >     it in another context.  The constraints discussed in Section
> >     3.3.2 might be effective against an eavesdropper, but they are
> >     less likely to be effective against a man-in-the-middle.
> >     Authentication of both parties in the TLS session, which
> >     involves the use of client authentication, will prevent an
> >     undetected man-in the-middle, and the use of the double
> >     handshake illustrated in Figure 2 will prevent the disclosure of
> >     the bearer SAML assertion to any party other than the TLS peer.
>
>Yes, this is significantly better.
>
> > >2) Section 3.3.2: "When SAMLAssertion is used, the field contains
> > >   XML constructs with a nested structure defined in
> > >   [SAML1.1][SAML2.0]."  This needs to be much more specific than
> > >   "some XML from these documents". What element/elements? Is this
> > >   an XML document (with XML declaration etc.), or just a
> > >   "fragment"? Which encoding?  And so on...
> >
> > Does this proposed text solve your concern?
> >
> >     When SAMLAssertion is used, the field contains an XML-encoded
> >     <Assertion> element using the AssertionType complex type as
> >     defined in [SAML1.1][SAML2.0].
>
>We also need to specify the character-to-octet encoding (UTF-8 would
>be the most logical alternative).
>
>Best regards,
>Pasi

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