Given the latest report from RSA re: new sophisticated hack on SecurID, let's remind ourselves of the importance of strong AuthN and the value it brings to the table.
From: Rich Furr [mailto:rfurr@safe-biopharma.org]
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2011 1:00 PM
To: Bob Pinheiro; Colin Wallis; 'Rainer Hörbe'; John Bradley
Cc: dg-bctf@kantarainitiative.org; Leadership Council Kantara; FI WG; Kantara@kantarainitiative.org
Subject: Re: [WG-FI] [KI-LC] PKI vs Non-PKI based trust models
All,
Will be happy to add to the mix with some things we are doing with Verizon in a day or two, but too many alligators today.
Thanks
Rich Furr
Head Global Regulatory Affairs and Compliance
New Office: 980-236-7576
Cell: 201-220-0160
From: wg-fi-bounces@kantarainitiative.org [mailto:wg-fi-bounces@kantarainitiative.org] On Behalf Of Bob Pinheiro
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2011 11:13 AM
To: Colin Wallis; 'Rainer Hörbe'; John Bradley
Cc: dg-bctf@kantarainitiative.org; Kantara Leadership Council Kantara; FI WG
Subject: Re: [WG-FI] [KI-LC] PKI vs Non-PKI based trust models
For the consumer market, I agree that an obvious strong authentication device would be a mobile phone. If the phone is a smartphone, then it's also a smartcard because it incorporates a chip for processing, just like a plastic smartcard. If such a smartphone is going to be used to access online apps requiring strong authentication, then the chip could incorporate a certificate for that purpose. But if the consumer is going to access these apps on a different computer, then using the mobile phone as an authentication device isn't going to work if authentication is based on the certificate. So an alternative is to incorporate a one-time password generator, or even to use the phone to receive a one-time authorization code via SMS. But that's cumbersome IMO. If I'm going to do online banking from my laptop computer, I don't want to have to get out my cell phone and generate a OTP, then type it into the computer. Or depend on being able to receive a SMS message and then type that into the computer.
So while a mobile phone may work in some situations, for others (IMO) it would be too cumbersome. For those apps, a USB device housing a certificate seems like the most secure and convenient choice. Just stick the device into the computer's USB port, enter a password, and you're good to go. For strong online authentication purposes, a USB device incorporating smartcard technology makes more sense to me than a plastic smartcard, which would require a card reader that most consumers don't have, and that would still have to be available at each computer the consumer uses. A single USB smartcard device could not only house multiple certificates for a variety of relying parties, or maybe just a single certificate trusted by multiple relying parties. It could also house an active client / claims agent to make portable a collection of long-lived U-Prove tokens. [Long-lived U-Prove tokens could transmit claims to relying parties without needing an identity provider to be available when the claims are required. This seems to be an important consideration, given that the providers of high value services may not want to shut out their customers if an identity provider is offline.]
You may object and say that people don't want to carry around another device. But consider this: people already carry around a lot of keys for different things. You need a key to get into your house. Different keys for different doors, even. You need another key to start your car. You may need another key to get into your office, or to unlock your desk drawer. Carrying around a bunch of keys is something that people are used to doing. So what's the big deal about carrying around a small USB thingy to unlock all your important online stuff?
That's not necessarily the argument I would use to sell the idea of USB devices as authentication devices. And a USB smartcard is probably too expensive for the mass consumer market at this time. For instance, an IronKey costs about $80 US. Maybe there are less expensive alternatives, but still, the only way this scenario would probably work is if consumers are simply given these USB smartcard devices and instructed to insert them into the computer's USB port when doing online banking, etc. But who would provide these devices to consumers, and educate them as to their use?
This gets back to the biggest problem that I think is impeding the deployment of strong authN and high assurance claims for consumers.....at least in the US. There needs to be relying parties such as banks, healthcare providers, social networking sites (???) and others that want to reduce identity-related fraud through the use of high assurance claims and strong authentication, and are willing to help bankroll the deployment of strong authN to the masses. Given the right incentives, maybe different consortia would arise within different trust communities such as banking, healthcare, etc., that might distribute USB smartcards (provided the economics can be made to work). But once a consumer possesses one, he/she ought to be able to install certificates or U-Prove tokens into the device for all the different high assurance applications across these trust communities.
Obviously there are going to be big issues to tackle to make such a scheme work, and not everyone may agree with my viewpoint. In Europe they seem to like plastic smartcards that require a card reader. But isn't this sort of what's being proposed by the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace? Even though it is voluntary, obviously the goal is to have high adoption levels. So something like what I'm proposing seems necessary. Use a smartphone as an authentication device for smartphone apps requiring strong authN, and a USB smartcard for everything else. Provision certificates or U-Prove tokens into these devices for authentication or transmittal of claims to various relying parties. Allow the exportation of these certificates and/or U-Prove tokens to personal computers that are frequently used for these applications, perhaps conditioned on the need for a Trusted Platform Module on the computer to house these things.
So it seems I have strayed off into trying to propose a strategy for mass deployment of high assurance identity credentials for consumers under the NSTIC banner. Maybe that's a bit premature, since the final NSTIC documents haven't been released yet. But I do think that Kantara needs to consider at some point what role(s), if any, it wants to take in helping to make an Internet identity infrastructure widely adopted and usable by the masses.
Bob P.
---------------------------
Bob Pinheiro
Chair, Consumer Identity WG
908-654-1939
kantara@bobpinheiro.commailto:kantara@bobpinheiro.com
www.bobpinheiro.comhttp://www.bobpinheiro.com
On 3/16/2011 5:42 PM, Colin Wallis wrote:
Yep, fair point Rainer, regards the how SmartCards can come into play and 'connecting islands'..
It's not that we are totally averse to any PKI. We are looking at PKI-ish solution as one of a number of options for federating government agencies. But this is not customer/end user facing.
Cheers
Colin
From: Rainer Hörbe [mailto:rainer@hoerbe.at]
Sent: Wednesday, 16 March 2011 8:37 p.m.
To: Bob Pinheiro
Cc: Colin Wallis; dg-bctf@kantarainitiative.orgmailto:dg-bctf@kantarainitiative.org; FI WG; Kantara Leadership Council Kantara
Subject: Re: [KI-LC] PKI vs Non-PKI based trust models
Bob,
SmartCards can be positioned in vertical markets, where there is a fine tuned value proposition and quality level for users and service providers, usually bundled with some "physical" benefit of the card like a customer loyalty program or physical access control. My view is that the way to better market penetration is to build these islands and then connect them using both pki and non-pki federations. I would not expect any breakthrough soon.
- Rainer
Am 16.03.2011 um 00:55 schrieb Colin Wallis:
Bob
Some interesting thoughts ..(moreso if one had decided to use smartcard technology).
FWIW, the emerging view from our program down in this little country is that end user/citizen folks want to carry another card around like a hole in the head. It would be different if we already had a sizable penetration of smartcards but we don't. However, we see many more possibilities with the ubiquitous mobile device. Those possibilities are dashed right now because the things that make identity work are hardwired into the OS with really, let's face it, no security. And, a bit like the browser vendors, I guess there is no incentive/pressure on them to change, and understandably the unit price would go up.
But wouldn't it be great to have a *separated* secure standardised TPM for things that customers carry round with them whatever they were... Bill, our lead architect uses an example of a phone, with all its usual stuff on one side and the TPM module on the back. We heard that Iron Key are going the TPM-type way, so that seems to line up with Bob's reference below. And this is getting close to our notion. But still, you want the USB to also do its usual storage functions and more too, right?
Cheers
Colin
From: Bob Pinheiro [mailto:kantara@bobpinheiro.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 15 March 2011 5:43 p.m.
To: John Bradley
Cc: Colin Wallis; dg-bctf@kantarainitiative.orgmailto:dg-bctf@kantarainitiative.org; FI WG; Curry Patrick; Kantara Leadership Council Kantara
Subject: Re: [KI-LC] PKI vs Non-PKI based trust models
OK, but it's still possible to use certificates for strong authentication of consumers if the certificate is contained on a USB smartcard token. Of course, relying parties must accept certificates for consumer authentication. Maybe there is a chicken-and-egg problem here: RPs may have little interest until someone shows them a strong authentication solution using certificates and smartcards that is economically viable for adoption and use by consumers. But will smartcard vendors devote resources to this until they see a consumer market?
The Smart Card Alliancehttp://www.smartcardalliance.org/ is a member of Kantara, and is also interested in getting smartcard technology into the hands of consumers. The Smart Card Alliance is represented on the Consumer Identity WG because they were hoping to get some insight into consumer interest in, and adoption of, smartcards. Unfortunately, that kind of insight doesn't exist within the Kantara community. At least not within CIWG. Yet the Smart Card Alliance has an Identity Councilhttp://www.smartcardalliance.org/pages/activities-councils-identity, so there ought to be some opportunities for collaboration between Kantara and Smart Card Alliance. There are at least two areas where our interests probably overlap: use of smartcards for access to patient health records, and smartcards as form factors for identity credentials usable within the "ecosystem" enabled by the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.
Another Kantara member is Fraunhofer FOKUS, which is the host of the next Kantara meeting, and is also a provider (?) of German eID cards. And although there seems to be no formal working relationships between Kantara and Microsoft, smartcards were used to provide secure U-Prove tokens for an RSA demo by splitting the token's private key between the user's computing device and the smartcard.
So there seems to be a number of areas of where certificates and smartcards can be used for strong authentication and/or high assurance claims. If these topics are of sufficient interest within Kantara, and resources can be found, perhaps there are opportunities for collaboration with Smart Card Alliance and others.
Bob P.
On 3/14/2011 6:25 PM, John Bradley wrote:
Colin,
I spent many years with the PKI Forum and other places pushing the better browser support rock up the hill to no great success.
There has been no detectable improvement in mutual TLS support. On the other hand EV certs got in because there was a clear revenue model to the PKI Forum participants.
Some of the problem relates to TLS itself and the rest with the browser venders.
If I had to get one thing from them it would be a way to do ephemeral keys for HoK as STORK and others have been asking for, also to no great success.
If someone wants to put together a gang to take on the browser venders I am in, but I am realistic about any real progress after 10 years or so of trying.
John B.
On 2011-03-14, at 5:56 PM, Colin Wallis wrote:
So the problem with client side Certs is the way they are implemented..with security in mind only, not privacy. 'Promiscuous' is the label given to them down here..
That's why the NZ Government does not use them in its consumer online service strategy...
And I might point out that it's too much of a generalisation for my comfort to say to that 'eGov prefers PKI' (Rainer's 5th bullet)
The lines between law enforcement/security (with no privacy) and consumer service/security (with privacy) seem to be getting blurred in some folks' minds (certainly not Bob's, nor John's..)
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