Authentication: Who are You? You are What You Eat

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Presented at CloudIdentitySummit 2014 by

Dale Olds

Identity and provisioning services are good appetizers, but they describe management of user information stored in various systems, i.e. identity at rest. Authentication starts identity in action. It's the main course and necessary before authorization. "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" -- Pink Floyd (via Gil) We will start with small portions of authentication theory and methods: such as knowledge-based, hardware-based, single use tokens, and multi-factor authentication. We will also taste the sweet and the bitter of the much maligned password. We will then have larger portions of federated authentication protocols from SAML to OpenID Connect. SAML gives you a well done steak. Before you can be served, OpenID Connect asks if you are okay with nuts, gluten, or dairy products in your juicy, medium-rare veggie burger. In conclusion, we will clear up some confusion between federated authentication and tokens used for delegated authorization. It’s something like the difference between a good mole BBQ sauce and a chocolate icing.