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Submitted by: Eve Maler
If the Requester (Note that the WG is currently discussing the proper way to understand and label all the parties on the requesting side; this scenario may be revised in the future to accord with later decisions about these concepts. The most recent proposed terminology is used here for now.)
If the requesting entity can identify itself (and the any requesting party user standing behind it) to the Authorizing Userauthorizing user's satisfaction, the user can set policies and make decisions that result in appropriate Requesters requesters gaining access.
Types of Requester Identity
There are several special cases of requester identity that are outlined in sections below. These may deserve optimization or special treatment in the UMA solution.
Requesting user(s) = authorizing user
The requesting user is the same human being ("natural person") as the authorizing user. For example, the calendar-sharing scenario and personal loan scenario involve a user who arranges to share her information with a variety of other applications that she herself logs in to use, and where the sharing is ultimately for her own benefit. Similarly, the Kantara InfoSharing WG's car-buying scenario suggests that car-buyer Sally might want to let her husband and a friend (individual people with online identities) see her collected research on new-car options, or to can authorize her car's manufacturer (a corporation) to access personal data required for her membership in its frequent-road-trip club. And the calendar-sharing scenario and personal loan scenario include allowing access to a specific Requester application, such as the website for a credit card or mortgage company (acting on the instructions of and on behalf of the selfsame person as the authorizing user).Though she may have different usernames at the requesting application, the host, and the authorization manager, the connection being forged is, in a sense, "with herself", just as is true of OAuth connections today.
Issues:
- Are there special optimizations – and/or concerns (for example, about privacy) – in the situation where an Authorizing User is granting access "to themselves" in the guise of other applications and digital identities? Policies that specially mention all the digital identities under which the same person travels can be considered privacy-sensitive information since they expose a kind of "federation" of those identities.
No requesting user
The requesting entity is a company or other organization – a "legal person" – that is acting on its own behalf in seeking access. For example, the protected inbox scenario may involve some requesting entities (vendors) that want to send marketing messages to the authorizing user. In this case, there is no requesting user.
Other requesting user(s)
The requesting user(s) are natural persons who are distinct from the authorizing user. For example, the Kantara InfoSharing WG's car-buying scenario suggests that car buyer Sally might want to let her husband and a friend (individual people with online identities) see her collected research on new-car options.
Issues:
- Should this case be prioritized lower? The telecon of 2009-08-27 discussed deferring this set of use cases.
- It is not UMA's responsibility to solve the problems that a People Service or a Portable Contacts API. However, could it neatly integrate with such solutions in order to allow relationship manager applications implementing an AM endpoint to provide more sophisticated ACL management?
Interaction of requester identity and authorizing user actions
If an AM can find out the unique identity of a Requester/requesting party, it can make use of it in two main ways:
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| Pre-configured policy | Real-time consent |
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Self-asserted label | "Anyone can gain access if they introduce themselves" | "Someone purporting to be 'Random' wants access" |
Identity from known issuer | "Let (this identity, this list of identities) from (this issuer, one of these issuers) gain access" | "Requester 'Solid' (verified by 'Known') wants access" |
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Pre-Configuration of Policy with Self-Asserted Label
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"Anyone can gain access if they introduce themselves."
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This use case is likely not to involve any sort of sophisticated matching of pre-configured policy to a particular identifier that any Requester can just make up. Rather, it is likely to involve a policy that freely gives access to relatively non-sensitive resources as long as the audit log entries can use some sort of Requester-chosen label. This is marginally more interesting than merely recording IP addresses, assuming the Requester chooses to use a label that is meaningful on some level.
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Pre-Configuration of Policy with Identity from Known Issuer
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"Let (this identity, this list of identities) from (this issuer, one of these issuers) gain access."
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The Authorizing User could also, assuming identities of friends and family at sites such as Google and Twitter are known, create "ACLs" (access control lists) that enumerate the allowed parties per resource or host. (Note that design principle DP9 protects Authorizing User privacy at the expense of parties standing behind the Requester; some authorization policy depends on knowing the identity of those who approach the resource looking for access.)
Issues:
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- It is not UMA's responsibility to solve the problems that a People Service or a Portable Contacts API. However, could it neatly integrate with such solutions in order to allow relationship manager applications implementing an AM endpoint to provide more sophisticated ACL management?
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Real-Time Consent with Self-Asserted Label
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"Someone purporting to be 'Random' wants access."
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- The Authorizing User has freely published the URL for a resource that is UMA-protected, and the Requester approaches without prior notice (known as the Hey, Sailor pattern).
This use case involves a user who is satisfied with self-assertion of Requester identity for this resource, so presumably the resource is not terribly sensitive or high-value.
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Real-Time Consent with Identity from Known Issuer
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"Requester 'Solid' (verified by Issuer 'Known') wants access".
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