[xacml] XACML May 2, 2002 Minutes

Title: XACML Conference Call Minutes

XACML
Conference Call

Date:  Thursday, May 2, 2002 

Time: 10:00 AM EDT 

Tel: 512-225-3050 Access Code: 65998 

 

Minutes of Meeting

 

Summary

Progress of Schema Subcommittee and Milan Face to Face was reviewed. An
issue has come up between the XACML schema and context which was SAML schema
but some are proposing now should be a standalone schema with mappings to SAML
and other contexts. A vote on whether to proceed in this way is expected at the
next conference call. Security and Privacy was discussed and suggested it is
mainly a trust issue and should not be in the architecture and an approach
similar to SAML should be taken and provide some guidelines. The schedule and
our status was also discussed. Clarification of the OASIS process and the
length of time required was given. Suggestions were made we create a committee
spec by June 1, work on implementations and submit September 1. If we have
another F2F, it needs to be firmed up before next TC call.

 

Action
Items

 
(from 4/18 action items) Hal to take over section
     6 of spec and produce something in next 2 weeks

 
(from 4/18 action items) Move action item for
     XACML primer by Hal/Konstantin to calendar with date of 1 month from today
     (5/16)

 
Michiharu and Anne to update descriptions of
     example applications, specifically for XML documents and J2SE after next
     schema released.

 
Simon to post minutes of a discussion held at F2F
     on context issue

 
Vote on whether XACML should have its own context
     schema at the next conference call.

 
Michiharu to post description of IBM patent on
     mailing list.

 
Vote to officially sanction the Joint Security
     Committee

 
Decide on date (early to mid June) and location
     of next F2F by 5/10.

 

Votes

None. Minutes of 4/18 were approved at F2F.

 

Proposed Agenda:

10:00-10:10 Roll Call and Agenda Review

10:10-10:15 Vote to accept minutes of April 18 meeting
(depending on quorum at F2F)

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/xacml/200204/msg00119.html

10:15-10:25 Review of Action Items (see 4/18 minutes)

10:25-10:40 Report of Schema Sub-Committee; summary of
F2F meeting

10:40-10:50 Discussion of Overall Status

(in particular, are we still on track for June 1st submission to
OASIS?)

10:50-11:00 Discussion of next face-to-face meeting:  is
there need?  is there time?

 

Roll Call 

James MacLean, Affinitex

Simon Godik, Self

Ken Yagen, Crosslogix

Hal Lockhart, Entegrity

Carlisle Adams, Entrust

Don Flinn, Hitachi

Konstantin Beznosov, Hitachi

Michiharu Kudoh, IBM

Polar Humenn, Self

Ernesto Damiani, University of Milan

Sekhar Vajjhala, Sun Microsystems

Anne Anderson, Sun Microsystems

 

Raw Minutes (taken by Ken Yagen)

Agenda Review

Michiharu - Update on IBM IP

Ken - Roll Call from F2F; In minutes, had quorum and voted to approve
4/18 minutes

 

Previous Action Items from 4/18

 
Carlisle will take roll at F2F and
     send to Ken

Complete

 
Move action item for XACML primer by Hal/Konstantin
     to calendar with date of 1 month from today (5/16)

 
Carlisle to ask Michiharu to post
     description of IBM patent to email list

Update later on this call

 
Hal to take over section 6 of spec and produce
     something in next 2 weeks

 
Michiharu and Anne to develop description of
     example applications, specifically for XML documents and J2SE [ed: Is this
     action item still open or resolved?]

Anne posted 3 approaches. Will update after reviewing
next schema update; Michiharu will update his as well.

 
James to send writeup to Polar or list on
     Security and Privacy for discussion at F2F.

Discussed at F2F. 

James - interested in getting some discussion on
conference call. From meeting minutes, got a since privacy concerns are not in
scope in XACML.

Simon - there was a vote that at least signing
portion is not in scope of XACML spec. Don't remember about encryption or
anything else. Maybe have a non-normative section will be enough. 

Carlisle - Will discuss with
summary of F2F later in call.

 
Members who believe an issue is ready for closure
     should post resolution to the list for discussion and voting.

 
Ken to incorporate voting results and Simon's
     issue list in Issue List and publish by end of day 4/18/02

Complete

 
Tim to rework combiner algorithm section in spec
     to reflect discussion and consensus that we use English explanation and pseudocode
     to explain (not specify) deny overrides.

Don't know if done yet, but should be in v13
next week

 
Tim to add change tracking in future versions of
     spec.

 
Carlisle will look into dial in
     capability, internet access at university, contact numbers for face to
     face.

 

10:18 AM EDT

Report of Schema Subcommittee and Summary of F2F

Working bottom up to create XML Schema

Issue between XACML schema and context which used to be SAML schema but
now want to see it able to be used in standalone way. Discussed how to refer to
this context. Michiharu presented a proposal and agreed to look into that and
possibly take a vote soon. Michiharu sent proposal to list on this. Would like
to hear comments from Tim who was not at F2F. Simon was to post minutes of a
discussion held at F2F.

Konstantin - can XACML be used without XML because XML is just an
model for marshalling.

Carlisle - XML is only means we have of expressing
our model, so not sure what you mean.

Konstantin - Creation of model and then mapping into XML

Hal - Expect it will get to a point that specific of semantics
around expression will have a dominant effect. Shared goal that applicable to
namespaces that don't otherwise use XML. Regarding SAML, don't see
an issue with it, strikes me as possible that we can still go forward and make
suggestions to SAML to support XACML. See decouple of revision process of a
good goal.

Carlisle - we've talked about an input and
response context for XACML. For obligations, example. It's reasonable to
take that to SAML.

Don - Also rational that other models could interact with XACML
- ie J2SE and CORBA. 

Hal - It's my belief that SAML is completely general and
could be used with CORBA, etc.

Simon - Need normal form to reference attributes without being
tied to specific form of SAML. Side effect context will replicate every element
in SAML schema.

? - Will XACML context be an extension of SAML?

Simon - self contained schema. Can distinguish different pieces,
can refer to attributes, etc. Can write different profiles for SAML versions
and other contexts like J2SE using transformation. But have to redefine almost
everything already defined in SAML.

Ken - Decoupling sounds like a requirement that XACML should be usable
as a standalone language.

Hal - Think this has been a requirement from the beginning.
Original use case to use XACML to export representations of policy, not
necessarily evaluate it. Lot of possible definitions of using
SAML from using a specific profile to using any element of SAML syntax. Would
the use of inputs in the form of context representation be a conformance point?
Would we test against the ability to accept inputs in this form to accept policy.
Would drive people using other schemes to do an internal conversion step to use
this format. Forces a certain design.

Simon - is a conformance point

Hal - Suppose I build a PDP and get information from CSIv2 on
principal. If forced to be conformant, must reformat CORBA construct in XACML
and pass to engine. Would simplify design but impact performance.

Carlisle - Before assumption was input in SAML
format and would have to do that anyways.

Simon - Requirement is being able to understand the policy.

Hal - Don't understand point of redoing all of SAML

Simon - Need to mimic all assertions from SAML, trimmed down but
similar.

Hal - Why can those that are the same be done by call by
reference?

Ernesto - If we want them part of our schema, will have XACML
namespace as part of name. Could be perfect reproduction but change of
namespace only.

Carlisle - Took straw vote at F2F. Still too early
to take vote. Perhaps at next conference call

Ken - Any discussion of how this would impact the schedule?

Carlisle - Want to discuss in a few minutes.

 

10:43 AM EDT Security and Privacy

Polar - came down to fact that largely based on trust of PDP. PDP
would authenticate its clients and anybody using it would have to authenticate
it. Trust decisions must be made about sensitive data sent to the PDP and
confidentiality. If you have sensitive data, maybe have encryption or
don't give it the sensitive data. Nothing we can put in architecture.

Hal - Was firm agreement need to confidentiality protect XACML
policies. Approach was to embed policy in their choice of external mechanism
like SAML. Given new approach, how would this be done? Integrity protection is
something people will want. Confidentiality will be needed as passed around.

Anne - Won't that be handled by a layer outside of XACML itself.
i.e. XML DSig, XML Encryption.

Hal - SAML also passed on it to these layers.

Carlisle - Signing a policy. Rules in there can be
referenced. Signature might cover referenced rule or rule itself. What if you
only have part signed and part unsigned. Which part (or all) do you trust? Decision
was we need to be silent on that

Hal - SAML silent as well. Should provide some guidelines about
how to combine with these elements.

Anne - Normative examples for XML DSig

Hal - Separate issue of saying we have a policy representation
and need to provide metadata around it (date, time, security protections,
...) and you embed policy in something else, but would illustrate by making
it specifically a SAML statement and using SAML date of issue, etc.

Anne - would we redefine saml assertions or just an XACML
attribute?

Simon - one issue how context looks like. Will defined everything
need in schema. Second issue, profile for SAML and use SAML mechanisms there.

Hal - This is not a SAML profile. There is general agreement we
need to provide basic capabilities around policy expression (metadata). Last
time, said would derive new SAML statement type and use existing SAML machinery
as way to protect our policy document.

Konstantin - Do we want to address this issue by June 1st
or wait until after release 1.0 (context issue). Public commentary on policy
schema

Simon - Interoperability issues will exist

10:54 AM EDT Process check on time; Issue tabled

Michiharu update on IBM IP

IBM one patent is published in Japanese patent office. Explained
contents at F2F. Have not posted info to mailing list but will do it soon. Told
by IBM IP person, they found that one US patent is published from
  US patent office. Not translation of Japanese patent, but is a counterpart to
the Japanese application. Will post information to list. These are
applications, not issued patents.

 

11:00 AM EDT Status Discussion

SAML schedule - June 1 send standards to Karl Best and he reviews

July 1 - go to OASIS members to review

July - Sept - 3 month review process

30 day voting begins October 1

November becomes OASIS standard.

Hal - at beginning of process becomes committee specification so
to enter process need three organizations implementing it.

Carlisle - Have remainder of month to get spec
entirely in order and three companies attesting to using specification. If miss
June 1 deadline, Sept 1 is next window.

Polar - will anyone have anything ready by June 1?

Simon - additional work of XACML context is not a lot of work

Polar - Too much to do by June 1.

Hal - We can make it a committee specification at any point.

 

Hal - item need to raise. Need to officially vote to sanction the
Joint security committee. Could wait until next meeting to do so.

 

Carlisle - Make committee spec June 1, work on
implementations over summer and submit Sept 1.

 

Carlisle - Look sometime early to mid June. Let's
firm this up sometime before next TC conference call. Perhaps by end of next
week. (5/10)

 

Symposium of Access Control Models in Monterey in June
(SACMET)