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PKI, IdM, & Federations. Triumvirate for Security with Privacy David L. Wasley net@edu 2006 . Outline. Why PKI Why identity management Why identity federations Why am I saying this?. What’s the problem?.
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PKI, IdM, & Federations Triumvirate for Securitywith Privacy David L. Wasley net@edu 2006
Outline • Why PKI • Why identity management • Why identity federations • Why am I saying this?
What’s the problem? • We need to manage access to certain resources for our campus communities within & across organizations • We need to protect privacy • We need to do this with sufficient reliability • We need this to scale
Why PKI • PKI supports reliable, trustworthy digital credentials • Issued by a trusted authority • Difficult to forge • Difficult to “share” if on a smart-chip device • Also supports • Document security, e.g. encryption • Document validation, e.g. digital signatures
Why identity management • Appropriate access management can require different reliable information about individuals • What an organization needs to know about an individual is context specific • A rich set of information is hard to manage while maintaining policy and privacy
Why identity federation • Separates the meaning of a credential from the identity associated with it • Allows authoritative source to assert up-to-date identity information about a user • Streamlines user experience across a wide variety of resources • Can protect privacy by releasing only what information is appropriate & allowed
Triumvirate • Credential asserts binding between physical person and identity information • Identity Management ensures trustworthy information • Identity Federation supports privacy and appropriate access
To Buy or Build PKI • Devil is in the details, e.g. - • Do you requiring broad distribution of a Trust Anchor? • Do you require flexibility and generality in your PKI? • Minimizing the need for inter-organization PKI trust can affect the build/buy choice • PKI “policy” is based on local business rules • Federation rules and, where needed, bilateral agreements define trust for IdP and SP
What’s the real problem • We haven’t yet made it usable by the average person • We’ve insisted on a complex trust model • Slow adoption discourages vendors • and results in awkward workarounds • Some potential uses do not yet have complete standards
What needs to be done • Every computer should be able to read any smart-chip device (at least of a given type) • Standards are needed (these are emerging) • Biometric PINs might be nice ... • Every O/S needs crypto API (this is happening) • User interfaces need much improvement • and users need better education and training • Functions need to be standardized • Federation technology needs to be used ...