Re: [Txauth] Reviewing draft-hardt-xauth-protocol-11

[Denis <[e-mail]>]

Hello  Francis,

> Hello Denis,
>
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 5:04 AM Denis <[e-mail] 
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Dick,
>
>>     On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 9:21 AM Denis <[e-mail]
>>     <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>>
>>         Hello Francis and Dick,
>>
>>         The good news first: we are making some progress. We are now
>>         close to an agreement with steps (1) up to (3),
>>         ... except that the place where the user consent is captured
>>         is not mentioned/indicated.
>>
>
>     This major question which is currently left unanswered is where,
>     when and how the user consent is captured.
>
>     Another important point to consider and to explain is related to
>     the assurances that the user can obtain about
>     the respect of his choices. This point is currently left
>     unanswered in draft-hardt-xauth-protocol-13.
>
[Denis] These two major points are still left unanswered at this time.

>
>>
>>         If a RO needs to be involved and since a RO is directly
>>         associated with a RS, why can't it be directly queried
>>         by the appropriate RS after step (2) or later on ?
>>
>>
>>     Good question. Perhaps you can expand on a use case where that
>>     would be useful?
>
>     Before I expand, would you be able to explain first under which
>     circumstances a RO needs to be queried by a GS ?
>
> In all circumstances. Can you name a situation where this is not the case?

[Denis] This is quite easy. The final decision is always taken by the 
RS. If a Client presents access tokens issued by ASs trusted by the RS
that contain appropriate attributes to perform the requested operation, 
then the operation is allowed.

If really a human RO needs to be involved for whatever reason, it is 
possible to get its involvement when the Client connects to the RS.
However such involvement does not need to be formalized by a protocol. 
It can be application specific.

>     How can the GS identify which RO to query ?
>
> There is supposed to be a preexisting relationship between GS and RO, 
> If not RO will have to register with GS in the first interaction 
> (onboarding).
>
> How can the GS identify how to connect with RO?
> GS must evaluate the RS provided info in step (3) 
> AuthZRequest(AuthZChallenge) to decide how to contact the RO. This is 
> where selection of interaction mode takes place.

[Denis] This means that a GS must have prior relationships with the RSs 
and ROs. While this should not be prevented for backward compatibility 
with OAuth 2.0,
this should not be the single case. Prior relationships between ROs and 
GSs is a door half-opened for Big Brother. If in addition the GS is able 
to know which operation
is attempted by the client on which RSs, then it is a door wide-opened 
for Big Brother.

>>         Which information is supposed to be presented to the RO ?
>>         Which information is supposed to be returned by the RO ?
>>
>>
>>     Just like how the user authenticates to an AS, how the AS and RO
>>     communicate is out of scope.
>
>     At the moment, the usefulness of a dialogue between a GS and a RO
>     has not been explained, nor demonstrated.
>     The question is about the functionality of that dialogue in terms
>     of input and output information (and not about
>     the design of a protocol or of a user interface). Anyway, AFAIU a
>     dialogue between a GS and a RO is optional.
>
>>     For many use cases, the User is the RO, and the interaction is
>>     through a user interface, not a machine protocol.
>
>     Wait a second. You wrote "the User is the RO". The User is
>     attempting to make an access to a RS by using a Client.
>     _That_ User is not the RO of the RS.
>
> The User interacts with the Client.
> The RO interacts with the GS.
>
> In some use cases (where we use redirect interaction) we assume the 
> person controlling the "User-Agent" is also the person
> controlling the "RO-Agent" and they reside on the same device. These 
> are cases where we say User equals RO.

[Denis] Sorry, I have difficulties to understand such a case. A person 
giving his consent to himself ?

Denis

> -- 
> Francis Pouatcha
> Co-Founder and Technical Lead
> adorsys GmbH & Co. KG
> https://adorsys-platform.de/solutions/