Access Management for Digital Libraries in a well-connected World

1. Access Management for Digital Libraries in a well-connected World John PaschoudSECURe ProjectLondon School of Economics Library ICDL 2004, New Delhi

2. Introduction • InfoSystems Engineer at the LSE Library - The British Library of Political & Economic Science (“the World’s largest library dedicated to the social sciences”) • …responsible for applied research projects, with external funding (JISC, EC, SURF, NSF…) • I am not a “Dr.”, but an “Eng.”(ineer) • …so I have no competence to decide what should be in the digital library • …but I do know how to build the shelves! ICDL 2004, New Delhi

3. Summary • Access Management – key to DL security • Principles of Access Management • What the UK has now: Athens, GRID PKI • What the UK is moving towards • Distributed technology: Shibboleth & SAML • Demands on libraries & universities ICDL 2004, New Delhi

4. Why is Access Management so important? • Library users (and where they want to study from) more diverse • Library resources (and where they are physically, legally held) more diverse • Resource owners want to maximise $$$ • Users (researchers) need to maximise currency of their knowledge • Libraries have limited $$$! ICDL 2004, New Delhi

5. Principles of Access Management • 4 processes: • Registration, AutheNtication, AuthoriZation, Accounting • Membership institutions (university, library, etc) must control Reg and AuthN • Resource hosts must control AuthZ • Users must control own privacy (of attributes, identity) • Security must be appropriate (for value of resources protected) • Scalability must be cross-domain, global (mostly) after Clifford Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information ICDL 2004, New Delhi

6. UK Current Assets • Athens: username/password based service for unifying access to digital library resources • Mainly licensed via JISC consortium deals • Over 2 million current usernames • Username/password database; maintenance devolved to institutions • Around 500 HE and FE institutions use the Athens service • Around 200 licensed resources are controlled via Athens • A high proportion of the major academic publishers have now implemented Athens • UK e-Science CA: service for issuing digital certificates for access to Grid-type resources • Based on OpenCA software (with local modifications) • Verification of user identities carried out by trusted RAs around the community • Current scale of operation a few hundred certificates per year ICDL 2004, New Delhi

7. UK current challenges • Athens uses single centralised database of users, and its own, proprietary protocols • Little international take-up as yet • Design lacks the flexibility and scalability of more recent approaches • e-Science CA is similarly centrally administered, and hard to scale up ICDL 2004, New Delhi

8. UK current actions • AAA Programme (2002-2004) • Experiments with newer AM technologies and architectural models • (SECURe Project was the main vehicle to test and liaise with Shibboleth development) • Foundation studies (2004): • Digital Rights management • Institutional Profiling • Single sign-on technologies • Feasibility of a national certificate issuing service • Policy management with PERMIS • Assessment of eduPerson & similar schemas • Core Middleware Programme (2004-2006) • Invites larger-scale experiments, tackling problems like “virtual organisations” of users, and secure resource access via university or library portals • New Shibboleth-based service infrastructure (2004-2006) ICDL 2004, New Delhi

9. What is Shibboleth? (ancient) • A word which was made the criterion by which to distinguish the Ephraimites from the Gileadites. The Ephraimites, not being able to pronounce “sh”, called the word sibboleth. See: Judges xii (Jewish or Christian Bible) • Hence, the criterion, test, or watchword of a party; a party cry or pet phrase. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) after Michael Gettes, Duke University & Shibboleth Project Team ICDL 2004, New Delhi

10. What is Shibboleth? (modern) • An initiative to develop an architecture and policyframework supporting the sharing - between domains - of secured web resources and services • A project delivering an open source implementation of the architecture and framework • Deliverables: • Software for Origins (campuses) • Software for Targets (vendors) • Operational Federations (scalable trust) after Michael Gettes, Duke University & Shibboleth Project Team ICDL 2004, New Delhi

11. Shibboleth Goals • Use federated administration as the lever; have the enterprise broker most services (authentication, authorization, resource discovery, etc.) in inter-realm interactions • Provide security while not degrading privacy. • Attribute-based Access Control • Foster interrealm trust fabrics: federations and virtual organizations • Leverage campus expertise and build rough consensus • Influence the marketplace; develop where necessary • Support for heterogenity and open standards (SAML++) after Michael Gettes, Duke University & Shibboleth Project Team ICDL 2004, New Delhi

12. Attribute-based Authorization • Identity-based approach • The identity of a prospective user is passed to the controlled resource and is used to determine (perhaps with requests for additional attributes about the user) whether to permit access. • This approach requires the user to trust the target to protect privacy. • Attribute-based approach • Attributes are exchanged about a prospective user until the controlled resource has sufficient information to make a decision. • This approach does not degrade privacy. after Michael Gettes, Duke University & Shibboleth Project Team ICDL 2004, New Delhi

13. How does it work? Hmmmm…. It’s magic.  (or: You can ask me later) after Michael Gettes, Duke University & Shibboleth Project Team ICDL 2004, New Delhi

14. How does it work? after SWITCH, Switzerland ICDL 2004, New Delhi

15. Who else is interested? • US NSF (they have paid for most of it) • JISC, UK • SWITCH, Switzerland (they have a whole-country Shibboleth Federation already) • SURF, Netherlands • Many resource owners (they need to follow what their market is doing) • Many software suppliers (WebCT, Blackboard, uPortal) ICDL 2004, New Delhi

16. Challenges for Libraries • Reliable Access Management will be a requirement • “installing Shibboleth” is easy, but… • To do Access Management, a university or library also needs: • Identity Management: directories of users and attributes (and all the technical infrastructure) • Policies on user privacy and vendor licences • To collaborate, forming national or international federations for access to resources • Middleware is invisible (when it works!) – so justifying costs to management is not easy ICDL 2004, New Delhi

17. Questions? Project info: www.angel.ac.uk/SECURe Contact: j.paschoud@lse.ac.uk ICDL 2004, New Delhi