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<font size="+1"><tt>HI Tim<br>
<br>
I will contact you off list and hope we can review this
together. I will put my full idea to you and see what you think
of the whole plan. In the mean time I have added a few comments
below.<br>
<br>
cheers<br>
denis<br>
</tt></font><br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 16/05/2015 16:46, Tim Bruijnzeels
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:55C9789E-14DE-4B9C-BAE1-74F1E9A377F8@ripe.net"
type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="Context-Type" content="text/html;
charset=windows-1252">
Hi Denis and all,
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">
<div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On 15 May 2015, at 18:34, denis <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:ripedenis@yahoo.co.uk" class="">ripedenis@yahoo.co.uk</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div class="">
<div class=""> <tt class="">Hi Tim and All<br class="">
<br class="">
Personalised authorisation is an idea I developed over
the last few years. I talked to many people in the
community about it at various RIPE meetings and
started to build up support for my ideas. </tt></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br class="">
</div>
<div>
<div class="">I believe that the WG appreciates your efforts
on this, and remembers your presentation at RIPE 68:</div>
<div class=""><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://ripe68.ripe.net/presentations/299-DB_WG_personalised_Auth_RIPE_68.pdf"
class="">https://ripe68.ripe.net/presentations/299-DB_WG_personalised_Auth_RIPE_68.pdf</a></div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
</div>
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">
<div class=""><tt class="">The basic idea was to allow
authorisation tokens in PERSON objects,</tt></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br class="">
</div>
<div>Yes, the important point here is that the credentials are
on PERSONs, rather than in one anonymous blob that is
today's MNTNER.</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Agreed, but in your proposal you are missing several key points
about how these credentials can be used. I agree on having the
option for PERSON objects to be self maintaining, but disagree that
you should not allow an organisation to manage the collection of
PERSON objects. There are many reasons why an organisation does
this. They may want to not allow anyone to use a password and
require all staff to use SSO, for example. By maintaining all the
PERSON objects they are in control of that. They may want to be able
to delete the PERSON object when the person leaves the company. They
may want notifications to be centralised. The PERSON objects may
only contain corporate information instead of actual personal data
to reflect the persons corporate identity.<br>
<br>
There was also a major oversight in the original implementation of
RPSL. Allowing PERSON object to be directly referenced anywhere has
caused so many problems to so many organisation over the last 15
years and continues to do so today. Here is an opportunity to start
fixing that as we move forward. By only allowing PERSON objects with
"auth:" to be referenced in a ROLE object and then using the ROLE as
the maintaining object, not only do we make it more intuitive, but
we decouple the direct references to PERSON objects throughout the
rest of the database. As time goes on that will prove to be a
massive plus.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:55C9789E-14DE-4B9C-BAE1-74F1E9A377F8@ripe.net"
type="cite">
<div class="">
<div><br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">
<div class=""><tt class=""> group these into ROLE objects
and use the ROLE 'instead of' a MNTNER. This is much
more intuitive and better reflects real life business
operations. The MNTNER object is an abstract construct
that many people simply don't understand. The long
term goal was to (possibly) eventually deprecate
MNTNER objects.</tt></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br class="">
</div>
<div>
<div class="">There are different opinions on how to refer
to authorised persons.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
You said it yourself that the first 3 hours of a DB training course
are spent explaining how to create a PERSON and MNTNER object. That
tells a story. If you ask someone who maintains their data they say
"I do" or "We do". "I" is a PERSON object. "We" is a ROLE object.
This is how people naturally think. Many people simply don't
understand what a MNTNER is. It is not even a pronounceable word to
a native English speaker. It is abstract and non intuitive. I agree
technically there is no difference between using a MNTNER or ROLE
object to maintain data. It is just semantics. But there is a world
of difference in perception and intuitiveness. The concept of a
group of people maintaining data naturally fits a role. I accept we
could achieve the same result if we simply renamed the MNTNER as
something like AUTH-ROLE and it becomes a special case of a ROLE
object. But long term I still favour combining both MNTNER and IRT
with ROLE and make this one of the most powerful objects used to
manage your data in the DB. (Then people will start to understand
why "abuse-c:" was implemented the way it is.)<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:55C9789E-14DE-4B9C-BAE1-74F1E9A377F8@ripe.net"
type="cite">
<div class="">
<div>
<div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">The idea to use ROLEs instead of MNTNERs was
presented again at RIPE 69, along side with the idea of
just allowing to refer to PERSONs from MNTNERs:�<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://ripe69.ripe.net/presentations/125-ripe69-db-wg-pers-auth.pdf"
class="">https://ripe69.ripe.net/presentations/125-ripe69-db-wg-pers-auth.pdf</a></div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">There was no support from the room, nor in
informal discussions with working group members, for the
option of using ROLEs instead of MNTNERs. While the basic
idea sounds attractive there are a lot of problems on
closer inspection. MNTNER objects differ from ROLEs in a
number of ways that make this, and the ultimate
deprecation of MNTNERs difficult. Slides 13 lists what is
missing from ROLEs, and would be needed to use them in an
mnt-* context. Slide 14 lists what is missing from MNTNERs
that would have to be made up, or made optional possibly
with business rules enforcing behaviour (e.g. address may
still be needed for a *-c referenced role), if remaining
MNTNERs were to be converted into ROLEs. And if the latter
isn't done, then we would have to live with mnt-* being
allowed to refer to either a MNTNER or a ROLE (with
special attributes turned on), for a long time, and this
is hardly intuitive.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
I think you need to present a full plan rather that just suggest
partial ideas. Just asking if we should replace MNTNER with ROLE
does not in itself sound like an inspiring move. My proposal to
allow this in a parallel track means you can either use the simpler,
intuitive method, or stick with the old MNTNER method. I think once
people realise the benefits they would move over.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:55C9789E-14DE-4B9C-BAE1-74F1E9A377F8@ripe.net"
type="cite">
<div class="">
<div>
<div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">There was however support for the basic
concept of extending MNTNERs with personalised
organisation in a backward compatible way that requires no
action from any of the over 50,000 maintainers in the
database. The RIPE NCC was tasked with working out and
presenting a new plan based on this resulting in the
presentation given at RIPE70:�<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://ripe70.ripe.net/presentations/165-ripe70-pers-auth.pdf"
class="">https://ripe70.ripe.net/presentations/165-ripe70-pers-auth.pdf</a></div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
</div>
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">
<div class=""><tt class=""> Trying to feed personalised
auth into objects via MNTNERs, even worse through
ROLEs and MNTNERs, is not only adding extra,
unnecessary, layers of abstraction but making it even
less intuitive and totally unrelated to real life
situations.<br class="">
</tt></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br class="">
</div>
<div>
<div class="">
<div class="">In this proposal MNTNER objects remain the
specialised security objects that they are today,
including features lacking from the normal
contact-oriented ROLE object, but personalised
authorisation is added with minimal changes to the
schema to allow those users that want to make use of
this to do so, without forcing any existing maintainer
to be modified.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
My proposal also allows anyone to continue to do what they do now
and ignore all the changes.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:55C9789E-14DE-4B9C-BAE1-74F1E9A377F8@ripe.net"
type="cite">
<div class="">
<div>
<div>
<div class="">
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">This is low hanging fruit.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
</div>
<div class="">Referring from an object to a MNTNER, and from
that MNTNER to a number of authorised PERSONs does not add
any layers compared to using a ROLE there instead of the
MNTNER. And note that I did not favour using ROLEs in
between MNTNERs and authorised PERSONs for this very
reason, in response to your comment through chat during
the WG session that this should be allowed.</div>
</div>
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">
<div class=""><tt class=""> <br class="">
My original idea was to simplify the auth model and
bring it closer to reality, adding extra, beneficial
features, without losing any of the operational
features currently available through MNTNERs....but
without the need to use MNTNERs. Everything can be
done with PERSON and ROLE objects...which people
understand.<br class="">
</tt></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br class="">
</div>
<div>
<div class="">I honestly believe that the now proposed model
does all this, the one thing people need to understand is
that a MNTNER despite the name 'maintainer' being singular
would be allowed to make explicit references to different
PERSONs who do the actual maintaining.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote cite="mid:55C9789E-14DE-4B9C-BAE1-74F1E9A377F8@ripe.net"
type="cite">
<div class="">
<div>
<div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">
<div class="">The MNTNER is like a ROLE for security
context.</div>
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">The MNTNER has extra things important to
security like:</div>
<div class="">�- where do the alerts go?</div>
<div class="">�- where do the notifications go?</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">And it's lacking other things relevant to
people looking to contact a group of people, but
irrelevant when authorising a group of people. Such as:
address, email, phone and fax.</div>
</div>
<div><br class="">
</div>
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">
<div class=""><tt class=""> I had this all worked out in
my head how to achieve all this, which is not
technically very difficult to implement and not hard
to understand and can be done in parallel with current
MNTNER operation (so no one has to change if they
don't want to). But I never wrote any of this down or
presented any detail to anyone. So I would like to
present an alternative option to the community, along
the lines I was thinking and had discussed briefly
with many people. It may take me a week or so to write
it all out and present it as a RIPE Labs article.<br
class="">
<br class="">
cheers<br class="">
Denis Walker<br class="">
Independent Netizen<br class="">
</tt><br class="">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 15/05/2015 10:27, Tim
Bruijnzeels wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:66A34212-F666-4C9A-8C3E-546032855D7A@ripe.net"
type="cite" class=""> Dear working group,
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Yesterday during the WG session we
presented a proposal for implementing personalised
authorisation:</div>
<div class=""><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://ripe70.ripe.net/wp-content/uploads/presentations/165-ripe70-pers-auth.pdf"
class="">https://ripe70.ripe.net/wp-content/uploads/presentations/165-ripe70-pers-auth.pdf</a></div>
<div class=""><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/123"
class="">https://ripe70.ripe.net/archives/video/123</a></div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">As recorded in the first cut of the
minutes:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">
<div class="">D. Personalised authentication (Tim
Bruijnzeels, RIPE NCC)</div>
<div class="">� (See presentation)</div>
<div class="">� This will allow one click creation
of person objects</div>
<div class="">� Maintain credentials in one place.</div>
<div class="">� Allow better auditing.</div>
<div class="">� Done by extending person object to
have multiple optional auth: attribute</div>
<div class="">� This will ultimately allow
existing auth: sso references to be cleaned up</div>
<div class="">� Last auth: attribute should not be
removed from a person object that is used in an
authorisation context.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Apart from questions about possible
additions below, there seemed to be general approval
for the above as an addition to the existing
maintainer mechanism.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">We would very much like to implement
this soon. We are already working on improving the
way users can log in and use the web updates, and
manage maintainers (and who is authorised for them),
so having this would be extremely useful for that
effort.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Technically I don't think the above has
to depend on further extensions below. Roles can be
added at any time that we consensus on them, and
showing audit logs is a separate effort - building
on this.</div>
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">
<div class="">� Should this be extended to the
role object as well? This would involve
additional business rules but is technically
possible.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">
<div class="">I understand and fully agree that
there is a need to maintain a list of authorised
persons centrally. But in effect a maintainer can
be used for this purpose. Multiple objects can be
maintained by the same maintainer, and the list of
persons authorised can then be managed on this
single maintainer:</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">obj1 � �---\</div>
<div class="">� � � � � � ---> mnt1 �--->
�pers1</div>
<div class="">obj2 � �---/ � � � � � \--> �pers2</div>
<div class="">�</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">In other words, just like role objects
can group persons in a 'contact' context,
'maintainers' could group persons in a
'authorisation' context, where also other things
such as "upd-to:" etc can find a home.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">So, technically I don't think there is
a need to have another role object here:</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">
<div class="">obj1 � �---\</div>
<div class="">� � � � � � ---> mnt1 �--->
�role1 �---> pers1</div>
<div class="">obj2 � �---/ � � � � � � � � � � �
�\--> pers2</div>
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Conceptually this can work of course,
but it adds some complexity, and things to
resolve:</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">a) referencing roles from maintainers,
and authorised persons from roles</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">The proposal was to refer to
authorised persons from maintainers like this: �
auth: �person-<nichandle></div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Can we resolve this by allowing:</div>
<div class="">� = auth: �role-<nichdl> on
maintainers</div>
<div class="">� = auth: �person-<nichdl> on
roles�</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">But no other auth: flavours for now.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Also note that this person is not
necessarily an authorisation *contact* for others.
If we follow current practice consistently we
would filter this value for security purpose.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">b) business rules regarding
auth->role</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Suggestion:</div>
<div class="">- A role can only be added to a
maintainer as "auth: role-<nichdl>" if it
has at least one "auth: person-<nichdl>"</div>
<div class="">- The last "auth: person" can not be
removed from a role if it's referenced anywhere as
"auth: role-"</div>
<div class="">
<div class="">- As before: "auth:
person-<nichl>" can only be added if the
person has at least one "auth:
<something>"</div>
<div class="">- As before: the last "auth:" can
not be removed from a person if it's referenced
anywhere as "auth: person-"</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">
<div class="">� It would be useful to record what
credential (maintainer) was used to make a
particular change to an object and this change</div>
<div class="">� would facilitate this. RV was
asked to raise this on the mailing list.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Currently we do know internally which
maintainer was used to submit a successful update,
but not which credential. Technically this could be
added of course. And in case of SSO or PGP people
can get some idea of which user did the update. But
showing which password hash was used for an update
may not be best security practice.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">With authorisation delegated to persons
(possibly through roles) we will be able to give a
much more better output. We can refer to the name of
the person, rather than a credential that should be
private to that person.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Also note that for any of this we will
also need to be sure that the user viewing this
information is authorised to see this. So what we
had in mind here is to show this only on the web
interface for logged in users authorised for at
least one mnt-by of the object they are looking at.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
</blockquote>
<br class="">
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br class="">
</div>
</blockquote>
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