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)
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