E-Authentication updated architecture - when did it happen

The E-Authentication project has updated the architecture as covered in my previous post E-Authentication has revised architecture to incorporate SAML V2.0. When i wrote the post I could not find a description of the updated architecture and the new interface specification. Today I found them and here I'll I have a quick look at the documents and the what's new.

The documents can be found by going to the E-Authentication start page and then choose Technical Architecture under FEDERATION block in the QUICK LINKS section in the right column. There are three documents:

• E-Authentication Federation Technical Approach (59 pages)
• E-Authentication Federation Adopted Scheme (40 pages)
• E-Authentication Federation Architecture Interface Specification (38 pages)

Time for update

I was curious to seen when it had been updated. The first document Technical Approach for the Authentication Service Component is versioned as 2.0.0 Final from May 4, 2007. A look at the document properties:

Shows that the PDF was created june 14, 2007 by Terry with the use of GPL Ghostscript. Open Source is certainly being used in government as well - Versions entitled GPL Ghostscript are distributed with the GNU General Public License, also note Ghostscript is a copyrighted work (artofcode LLC owns the copyright); it is not shareware or in the public domain.

The HTTP headers for the PDF document:

wget -S http://www.cio.gov/eauthentication/documents/TechnicalApproachForTheASC.pdf
--10:16:06--  http://www.cio.gov/eauthentication/documents/TechnicalApproachForTheASC.pdf
           => `TechnicalApproachForTheASC.pdf'
Resolving www.cio.gov... 159.142.134.71
Connecting to www.cio.gov|159.142.134.71|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
  X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
  Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:26:49 GMT
  Content-Type: application/pdf
  Accept-Ranges: bytes
  Last-Modified: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 19:42:56 GMT
  ETag: "182d3482e1c7c71:179c"
  Content-Length: 1133852
Length: 1,133,852 (1.1M) [application/pdf]

Shows that it was last modified Mon, 16 Jul 2007, and the page carrying the links:

wget -S http://www.cio.gov/eauthentication/TechnicalArchitecture.htm
--10:15:28--  http://www.cio.gov/eauthentication/TechnicalArchitecture.htm
           => `TechnicalArchitecture.htm'
Resolving www.cio.gov... 159.142.134.71
Connecting to www.cio.gov|159.142.134.71|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
  X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
  Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:26:11 GMT
  Content-Type: text/html
  Accept-Ranges: bytes
  Last-Modified: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 19:44:33 GMT
  ETag: "b8c292bbe1c7c71:179c"
  Content-Length: 2808
Length: 2,808 (2.7K) [text/html]

the same date but approximately two minutes later, so that probably was the publication time. But what about the july newsletter:

wget -S http://www.cio.gov/eauthentication/documents/FederationNewsletterJULY2007.pdf
--10:25:51--  http://www.cio.gov/eauthentication/documents/FederationNewsletterJULY2007.pdf
           => `FederationNewsletterJULY2007.pdf'
Resolving www.cio.gov... 159.142.134.71
Connecting to www.cio.gov|159.142.134.71|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
  X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
  Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:36:34 GMT
  Content-Type: application/pdf
  Accept-Ranges: bytes
  Last-Modified: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:17:07 GMT
  ETag: "da8562c741cac71:179c"
  Content-Length: 199334
Length: 199,334 (195K) [application/pdf]

that was yesterday 19 Jul 2007 and the index page was updated five minutes later:

wget -S http://www.cio.gov/eauthentication/
--10:26:57--  http://www.cio.gov/eauthentication/
           => `index.html'
Resolving www.cio.gov... 159.142.134.71
Connecting to www.cio.gov|159.142.134.71|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
  X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
  Content-Location: http://www.cio.gov/eauthentication/index.htm
  Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:37:39 GMT
  Content-Type: text/html
  Accept-Ranges: bytes
  Last-Modified: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:23:44 GMT
  ETag: "ece822b442cac71:179c"
  Content-Length: 14280
Length: 14,280 (14K) [text/html]

So by luck I found the news rather quickly (haven't found out where to sign up for the newletter yet).

Well kept secret

Why didn't I find the documents yesterday? Yes, i didn't follow the right navigation, but that aside the search engine at www.cio.gov doesn't impress me. A search for e-authentication from the http://www.cio.gov/ index page gives, let say not what I had expected. As a further sidenote it's kind of odd that the page with the links to the technical documents are set not to be indexed with:

<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX">

The SAML V2.0 was announced in the March newsletter, so enough bitching and digging dates, what's the content? (to be followed)