Thanks for your review and feedback, Richard. Replies are inline below...

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 9:47 PM, Richard Barnes <r...@ipv.sx> wrote:

> Richard Barnes has entered the following ballot position for
> draft-ietf-oauth-assertions-17: Discuss
>
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>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> DISCUSS:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "The assertion MUST contain an Audience that identifies the Authorization
> Server as the intended audience.  Assertions that do not identify the
> Authorization Server as an intended audience MUST be rejected."
>
> Could you please identify the threat model within which this "MUST" is
> required?  This requirement doesn't follow from any of the threats
> elaborated in Section 8.
>
> The Audience is only necessary if the Issuer wishes to constrain the set
> of Authorization Servers with which an assertion may be used.  So ISTM
> that this should be "MAY contain..."
>
>

The audience restriction let's the issuer say specifically what relying
party is allowed to consume the assertion, which ensures that the client
can't use it somewhere else that it wasn't intended and that the relying
party that receives the assertion can't turn around and use it to access
some other service.

Strictly speaking, you are right that the audience is only necessary if the
Issuer wishes to constrain the set of Authorization Servers with which an
assertion may be used. But the Issuer really really really should make that
constraint and fully understanding the implications of not doing so is
difficult and unlikely.

There was a vulnerability in Google apps SAML a few years back that
demonstrates how important audience restriction is and how it can be
difficult for even very sophisticated providers to get it all right. I
haven't had time to read it again to make sure but I think that this is the
paper http://www.ai-lab.it/armando/pub/fmse9-armando.pdf

I don't see what value allowing audience to be omitted brings other than
that it is academically a possibility. But requiring it (hopefully, if the
requirement is followed) helps reduce the possibility of a whole bunch of
security problems that folks likely won't foresee.



> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> COMMENT:
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "keyed message digest" -> "Message Authentication Code"
>
> That's the proper terminology [RFC4949], especially since there are MACs
> that are not based on digests.
>

OK


>
> "This mechanism provides additional security properties." -- Please
> delete this or elaborate on what security properties it provides.
>

Will delete.


>
> Section 8.2 should note that "Holder-of-Key Assertions" are also a
> mitigation for this risk.
>
>
OK



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