[cap-talk] What's an authenticated authentication?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

"Rob Meijer" <capibara at xs4all.nl> writes:

> On Fri, July 24, 2009 11:02, Ludovic Courtès wrote:

[...]

>>   http://acegisecurity.org/acegi-security/apidocs/org/acegisecurity/AuthenticationManager.html
>>
>>   Authentication authenticate(Authentication authentication)
>>                             throws AuthenticationException
>>
>>     Attempts to authenticate the passed Authentication object, returning
>>     a fully populated Authentication object (including granted
>>     authorities) if successful.

[...]

>> So this method literally "establishes the authenticity of a mark that
>> validates the authenticity of something"?
>
> Sounds reasonable, like establishing that a EU passport (that validates
> the authenticity of my identity) is a real and unaltered password. My
> password authenticates my identity belonging to me, but my passport itself
> is also subject to authentication by people and systems checking my
> identity.

Yes, that's right, but just like any other object.  Thus, i would rather
expect something like:

  Authentication authenticate (Object object)

AIUI, in Rees' "A Security Kernel..." terms, we'd make it clear which
aspect of the object is to be authenticated, so it could look like:

  boolean is_authentic (object o, class c)

which would be used as:

  is_authentic (my_passport, eu_passport_class)

What do you think?

Thanks,
Ludo'.