[ogsa-wg] Comments on OGSA WSRF BP 1.0 draft 25 (specifically security)

[humphrey at cs.virginia.edu]

I assume that this document has not entered public comment, so I'll post my 
comments here regarding security. I'm afraid that these are largely the SAME 
comments that I've made before.

Here are my specific concerns...

The security section (section 8.1) implies that *EVERY* SOAP message must be 
either (1) over TLS or (2) "SOAP Message security with XML signature and/or 
XML Encryption". If you truly mean this (implied by "R0811"), this is overly 
restrictive and makes no sense (there does not exist *ANY* message that can 
justifiably be sent between services/clients that need not incur the overhead 
of crypto?). However, it's not clear if you really mean this 
("R0819", "R0820", "R0821", "R0822", "R0823" seem to imply otherwise)... so, 
what exactly is the intention here? 

In general, section 8.1.2 is too restrictive -- "mutual-authenticated WS-
Communication will be required" is overly restrictive. And this section 
includes this statement: "The Profile mandates that there be no anonymous 
communication. To ensure interoperability, only X.509 certificate-based 
authentication is permitted by the Profile.") So, this latter part in 
particular says that there is *NO PLACE* for password authentication in OGSA. 
(I also believe that you have now outlawed MyProxy, right?)

Am I reading something incorrectly?

-- Marty

Marty Humphrey
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Virginia




-------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/