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Re: Symptoms vs. Causes

2007-09-12 07:25:58
At Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:20:09 +0200,
Eliot Lear wrote:

Eric,
As I noted in my review, we already have a number of protocols which
potentially provide this functionality, including mutual authentication.
  

And I think looking at protocols without an understanding of how they 
are used and how they interact with the UI is just as wrong as 
attempting to fix the problem simply within the UI.  You wrote that some 
mechanisms could be made to work.  You might be right, but I'm not 
convinced.  Someone actually has to write out how these mechanisms, such 
as challenge/response ARE made to work with a web browser and a 
transactional protocol, such that they also actually solve Eliot's Dad's 
probem (EDP ;-) of the user not shooting themselves in the foot by 
transmitting the same credential to multiple disparate relying parties 
(or authenticating services, if you will).

None of the systems I mentioned (TLS-PSK, SRP, PwdHash) has this
problem--provided that the user actually uses the new authentication
method and doesn't type his password into some Web form. But of 
course that's a UI problem, not a protocol problem.

-Ekr



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