Authentication & Authorization

[Darren Loher]

On Mon, Mar 13, 2000 at 04:08:16PM -0500, Shane Kerr wrote:
> We've had some preliminary discussions about how we want authentication
> and authorization implemented in the new ARIN database interface.
> Attached please find a draft document discribing a proposal for this.
> 
> As well as general comments from this group, there are several specific
> questions that need to be answered:
> 
> 1. How should password recovery work? 
> 
>   As planned, access via the WWW will use SSL encrypted login & password.
>   There needs to be some sort of key recovery for this.  This can be the
>   "mail me my password" model, the "mail me a hint" model, or the "you're
>   hosed, call support" model.  We would very much prefer one of the first
>   two, to minimize the busy work our registration services group has to
>   do.  Which would the community prefer?


I vote for the mail me a hint model.  


> 2. Do we need to support encrypted e-mail?
> 
>   The new system will support authenticated e-mail, but need not
>   necessarily support encrypted e-mail.  This may be a requirement,
>   especially as people mail us what is effectively part of their business
>   plans, but it would be nice not to have to include this.

I believe that ARIN should make their public PGP key available on the 
pgpkeys.mit.edu keyserver as well as on their web page.  This will allow 
ARIN customers to send you encrypted mail if they are so inclined.  This
would be very good when IP Justifications are sent in.  I would really
like to see ARIN accept encrypted mail like this.

However, I don't believe there's nearly as much a need for ARIN to be able
to send customers encrypted mail.  I do not believe encrypted email is 
required for normal correspondence, such as updating the ARIN whois
database and so on.


> 3. Is there a way to handle the Main POC leaving an organization?
> 
>   Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  (Who watches the watchmen?)  Is
>   there a way to handle the problem created when a trusted user is no
>   longer trusted?


This issue could be helped if there was more than one point of contact
for a netblock.  Something like an abuse contact and a ip-administration
contact would be great.  

This would give us ISP's a better way to direct abuse/security related mail 
and IP Administration mail.  The great side effect of this is with two 
contacts, if one leaves, the other contact could still be authorized to 
update their record(s).  



-- 
Darren Loher                 Level 3 Communications
dploher at level3.net           Global Data Engineering
720-888-2847 (office)