RE: [ws-sx] Issue PR013: Need EncryptedSupportingTokens assertion

Jan,

My scenario is a WSS 1.0 asymmetric binding scenario where there is only one recipient key from the services provider. The client does not have private key. On this scenario, the user does not want to change from asymmetric binding to symmetric binding. The reasons are:

The existing service only support WSS 1.0, and cannot migrate to WSS 1.1 for all the clients at the same time easily.
The existing service uses a simple asymmetric binding to encrypted plain text password, and does not want to change to symmetric binding because the use doesn’t want a complex, over-engineering, and poor-performance new solution that will cause interoperability problems.

My motivation is to provider a simple policy assertion for a simple cryptography problem – encrypt plain text password using server’s certificate, instead of ask users to change their existing WS security solution into a more complex and not interoperable security solution.

Again, this is a simple support taken assertion for a very simple and common scenario that users want.

Best regards,

Symon Chang

From: Jan Alexander [mailto:janalex@microsoft.com]
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 5:02 PM
To: Greg Carpenter; Symon Chang; ws-sx@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc: Marc Goodner; Hal Lockhart
Subject: RE: [ws-sx] Issue PR013: Need EncryptedSupportingTokens assertion

In your scenario the sender either have:

a) a shared symmetric key - in this case you can use the same key to both encrypt and sign the supporting token or you can derive two keys (recommended) one used for encryption and second one used for signature.

b) a recipient public key – in this case you will use the public key wrap a symmetric key that the sender generates which is then used to encrypt the supporting token. Again, you can either use the same key to sign the supporting token or you can derive two keys (recommended), one for encryption and one for signature.

In both cases you can easily create a signature over the supporting token, therefore I don’t understand why this support token type is needed. Can you please clarify your motivation?

Thanks,

--Jan

From: Greg Carpenter [mailto:gregcarp@microsoft.com]
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 8:48 AM
To: Symon Chang; ws-sx@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc: Marc Goodner; Hal Lockhart
Subject: [ws-sx] Issue PR013: Need EncryptedSupportingTokens assertion

Issue PR013

From: Symon Chang [mailto:sychang@bea.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 11:25 AM
To: ws-sx@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc: Marc Goodner; Hal Lockhart
Subject: [ws-sx] NEW Issue: Need EncryptedSupportingTokens assertion

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Protocol:  ws-sp

http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/ws-sx/download.php/21401/ws-securitypolicy-1.2-spec-cd-01.pdf

Artifact:  policy

Type: design

Title: Need EncryptedSupportingTokens assertion

Need EncryptedSupportingTokens assertion to encrypt plain text password in Username Token for authentication.

Description:

The current WS-SP spec has SupportingTokens, SignedSupportingTokens, and SignedEncryptedSupportingTokens assertions, but does not have EncryptedSupportingTokens assertion.

Encrypted support token without signature is a common use case, when the plain text password is used on the Username Token for authentication, and the client does not have private key for signature. When the server can only accept plain text password, encrypt the password with server’s X509 certificate is a good security practice, but existing spec does not have a simply assertion in supporting token for this simple requirement.

Related issues:

Need policy example for encrypted username token.

Proposed Resolution:

Added new EncryptedSupportingTokens assertion into WS-SP spec, after section 8.5. -- “SignedEncryptedSupportingTokens Assertion”. The text can be similar to the section 8.5.

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