Subject: [OAUTH-WG] Authentication Method Reference Values: Call for Adoption Finalized

From: Hannes Tschofenig <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 20:22:38 +0100

Hi all,

On January 19th I posted a call for adoption of the Authentication
Method Reference Values specification, see
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/oauth/current/msg15402.html

What surprised us is that this work is conceptually very simple: we
define new claims and create a registry with new values. Not a big deal
but that's not what the feedback from the Yokohama IETF meeting and the
subsequent call for adoption on the list shows. The feedback lead to
mixed feelings and it is a bit difficult for Derek and myself to judge
consensus.

Let me tell you what we see from the comments on the list.

In his review at
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/oauth/current/msg15423.html James
Manger asks for significant changes. Among other things, he wants to
remove one of the claims. He provides a detailed review and actionable
items.

William Denniss believes the document is ready for adoption but agrees
with some of the comments from James. Here is his review:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/oauth/current/msg15426.html

Justin is certainly the reviewer with the strongest opinion. Here is one
of his posts:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/oauth/current/msg15457.html

Among all concerns Justin expressed the following one is actually
actionable IMHO: Justin is worried that reporting how a person
authenticated to an authorization endpoint and encouraging people to use
OAuth for authentication is a fine line. He believes that this document
leads readers to believe the latter.

John agrees with Justin in
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/oauth/current/msg15448.html that we
need to make sure that people are not mislead about the intention of the
document. John also provides additional comments in this post to the
list: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/oauth/current/msg15441.html
Most of them require more than just editing work. For example, methods
listed are really not useful,

Phil agrees with the document adoption but has some remarks about the
registry although he does not propose specific text. His review is here:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/oauth/current/msg15462.html

With my co-chair hat on: I just wanted to clarify that registering
claims (and values within those claims) is within the scope of the OAuth
working group. We standardized the JWT in this group and we are also
chartered to standardize claims, as we are currently doing with various
drafts. Not standardizing JWT in the IETF would have lead to reduced
interoperability and less security. I have no doubts that was a wrong
decision.

In its current form, there is not enough support to have this document
as a WG item.

We believe that the document authors should address some of the easier
comments and submit a new version. This would allow us to reach out to
those who had expressed concerns about the scope of the document to
re-evaluate their decision. A new draft version should at least address
the following issues:

 * Clarify that this document is not an encouragement for using OAuth as
an authentication protocol. I believe that this would address some of
the concerns raised by Justin and John.

 * Change the registry policy, which would address one of the comments
from James, William, and Phil.

Various other items require discussion since they are more difficult to
address. For example, John noted that he does not like the use of
request parameters. Unfortunately, no alternative is offered. I urge
John to provide an alternative proposal, if there is one. Also, the
remark that the values are meaningless could be countered with an
alternative proposal. James wanted to remove the "amr_values" parameter.
Is this what others want as well?

After these items have been addressed we believe that more folks in the
group will support the document.

Ciao
Hannes & Derek