WG15 RGSEC Action Item Report		Tokyo 1994 May 10	WG15 N488

Response to Danish delegation documents WG15 N304 and WG15 N379

RESPONSE

In response to the Danish "NO" vote on the NP for the POSIX Security Amendment
(N379), and on the objections to the POSIX 1003.6 Draft 12 distribution (N304),
RGSEC makes the following comments.

RGSEC agrees with the POSIX Security Working Group opinion that the inclusion of
authentication interfaces in the P1003.1e and P1003.2c draft standards is beyond
the scope of those documents.  9945-1 does not include the concept of a "user", only
the concept of a user ID.  Thus, there was no basis upon which an authentication API
could be proposed.  There is significant overlap in this area with the work of the
POSIX administration working group.

RGSEC agrees with the Danish comments that authentication APIs should be
addressed by 9945.  However, RGSEC does not want to hold up the completion of the
current POSIX Security Amendment to try to resolve these issues.  Additionally,
there is ongoing work in the  Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF Generic Security
Serives API - GSSAPI) and at the US NAtional Institute of Science and Technology
(the NIST Common Authentication Technology - CAT - initiative), and RGSEC
recommends that WG15 advis the POSIX Security Working Group to wait until these
other efforts are more mature rather than duplicating effort.

It should be noted that the POSIX Security Working Group has identified a group of
people who are willing to undertake the development of a POSIX API in the area of
authentication, and has submitted a PAR to PASC to perform this work.  RGSEC
encourages the Danish delegation to have any interested parties in Denmark contact
the POSIX Security Working Group CoChair to ensure that their concerns are being
addressed, and to also help in the creation of the standard if appropriate.

The POSIX Security Working Group CoChair is:

	Jon F. Spencer
	DataGeneral Corporation
	62 T.W. Alexander Drive, MS 119
	Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
	USA
	+1-919-248-6246  FAX +1-919-248-6108
	spencer@rtp.dg.com