CTAB Tuesday March 24, 2020

 Attending

  • David Bantz, University of Alaska (chair)   
  • Mary Catherine Martinez, InnoSoft (vice chair)  
  • Pål Axelsson, SUNET  
  • Tom Barton, University Chicago and Internet2, ex-officio

  • Ercan Elibol, Florida Polytechnic University  

  • Richard Frovarp,  North Dakota State  

  • John Pfeifer, University of Maryland - 

  • Chris Whalen, Research Data and Communication Technologies   
  • Eric Goodman, UCOP - TAC Representative to CTAB  
  • Jule Ziegler,  Leibniz Supercomputing Centre  
  • Brett Bieber, University of Nebraska  
  • Jon Miner, University of Wisc - Madison  
  • Marc Wallman, North Dakota State University  , InCommon Steering Rep, ex-officio 
  • Ann West, Internet2,  
  • Albert Wu, Internet2   
  • Jessica Coltrin, Internet2,   
  • Kevin Morooney, Internet2  
  • Emily Eisbruch, Internet2                               

Regrets:

  • Rachana Ananthakrishnan, Globus, University of Chicago

  • Chris Hable, University of Michigan

  • Robert Zybeck, Portland Community College 

     

ACTION ITEMS FROM THIS CALL:  

    • AI DavidW and Albert draft an email  for CTAB sending a note about pausing community consensus for BE v2, share this with CTAB via Google Doc. Include a teaser for the next message. 
    • AI DavidW and Albert draft  another email about the value of trust federation framework in this time.  State we have more measures prepped for the future, to strengthen communication, stay tuned. Share this google doc with CTAB too.
    • AI CTAB members collaborate (using a google doc) on benefits of federation especially during  this time of moving teaching and learning to online,, mentioning phishing attacks and other key messages.

Discussion

Administration

Welcome Marc Wallman, new representative from InCommon Steering, 

  • Thanks to Brad Christ who is leaving us as InCommon Steering rep


Update on Baseline Expectations v2  comm plan and timing- David/Albert (15 min)

  • Agreed to extend BE community consensus process until May 15, 2020
  • Revised “invitation” email text:  (note: this is now outdated) 
  • Sent notice to CTAB and to InCommon participant list
  • Blog asking for feedback was published on the InCommon website  https://incommon.org/news/your-feedback-needed-for-proposed-new-baseline-expectations/
  • Schedule of communications for BE2 consensus: 
  • About 12 people have subscribed to the community consensus list
  • There was a decision to broaden delivery of the invitation to other lists in addition to InCommon participants list , such as EDUCAUSE list, InCommon Execs and InCommon Site Admins, but we have not sent to these lists yet,  
  • What is the right timing for sending to those additional lists? 
  • Need to give campuses time to coordinate their online teaching / learning environments
  • We need 2 rounds of communication to community:
  •    Round 1. Be sure we don’t have gaps
  •    Round  2. Plan based on the community feedback
  •          Need a bigger group to weigh in on round 2
  • The current schedule of communications is for round 1, schedule of communications for round 2 will be developed later
  • Brett: we need to be prepared for lack of engagement in BE at this time
  • Kevin: 4 stages between now and May 15
  •   1   move to online
  •   2   testing, finals,  online
  •   3   Grade submission
  •   4   Commencement
  • After commencement  there might be more chance for engagement
  • At U Nebraska, the IDM team may be pulled in some new directions
  • Chance to emphasize the importance of federation
  • There is a chance to point out how identity federation enables this shift 
  • Chris W: NIH dealing w researchers and labs, need to provide as much as support as possible
  • Jon: has worked w research computing community at U Wisc in recent days
  • Less time to focus on CTAB
  • Much  going on with getting staff to work from home, putting out fires in that transition
  • Most people will have limited or no time to respond to requests such as to review baseline expectations 
  • Suggestion to communicate to the community that we want to respect their time and push out the timeframe for BE v2.  Could talk about the importance of the federation infrastructure as part of that communication. Don’t need to set a firm date for when there will be re-engagement on BE v2
  • Reminder there were not a lot of active discussion on BE v1 at this point in the process
  • It was noted that there is  value of pushing for some degree of encryption, and ability to handle SIRTFI, we have already extended from April 15 to May 15
  • Recent Working Group Chairs meeting focused on continuing current working groups to the extent people have time but delaying launching of planned new working groups.
  • Does the current situation change what we should include in BE v2? 
  • More interest in interoperability perhaps
  • In this environment with no border, no perimeter
  • Need to beware of phishing scams around coronavirus info
  •  Blog post is already live. We could declare community consensus open but with open end date.  Could wait to do the additional planned outreach to other lists.
  • Suggestion to pause the community consensus process
  • If we pause the community consensus process, this gives us a chance for communication to the community that we respect their time. Pausing gives CTAB membors freedom to not worry about this  right now given other priorities

   DECISION: PAUSE the community consensus process for Baseline Expectations v2.

  • ACTIONS:  
    • AI DavidW and Albert draft an email  for CTAB sending a note about pausing community consensus for BE v2, share this with CTAB via Google Doc. Include a teaser for the next message. 
    • AI DavidW and Albert draft  another email about the value of trust federation framework being used in this time.  State we have more measures prepped for the future, to strengthen communication, stay tuned.
    • AI CTAB collaborate (using a google doc) on benefits of federation especially during  this time of moving teaching and learning to online,, mentioning phishing attacks and other key messages.
    • BE2 office hours - when/who? (office hours will be postponed)

Working Groups 

  • REFEDS/profile/MFA  https://wiki.refeds.org/display/GROUPS/Assurance+Working+Group (Jule)
    •  A call was held Tuesday March 17 2020
    • This was a one time call to discuss the proposal to create entity categories for REFEDS MFA/SFA.
    • There was suggestion from that call to morph that into a ongoing, bi-weekly call to discuss  topics related to assurance.
      Topics which may end up on the agenda are:
      - EC for REFEDS assurance suite (or other means to achieve, for example, measurement)
      - Microsoft ADFS support for REFFEDS assurance suite (which was proposed in the scope of the new REFEDS work plan)
      - Promotion of REFEDS assurance suite
      - Logos for RAF/SFA/MFA (and other REFEDS specs)
      - OIDC identity assurance
    •  Discussion of using a baseline approach to find out which entities are supporting MFA and which are not
    •  REFEDs working plan, suggestion for WG to add support for Microsoft ADFS  https://wiki.refeds.org/display/WOR/2019+REFEDS+Workplan
    •  Heather thinks perhaps include that in REFEDS Assurance working group

  •  REFEDs baseline expectations WG    https://wiki.refeds.org/display/GROUPS/Baseline+Expectations+Working+Group Pal
    • waiting for the notes from last call
    • Discussed federation baseline operator issues
    • Viable but need to tweak them 
    • Issues are being addressed, need to better address to international audience
    • Interop versus reach
    • Discussed: should edugain adhere to baseline also?
    • One more meeting and then there will be writeup
    • ChrisW:   discussion on turning on MFA , issue of uncertainty on what we will get back,  not sure when an ADFS or siteminder IDP receives the request.
      Interest in setting up a test SP to do that in the R&S category, to see what the response would be. What kind of data would we get.
    • Suggestion to manage that thru the WG
    • Want testing from broad cross section within edugain
    • This is good project for the assurance group

    • MC notes: 
official ADFS/Azure AD -> InCommon docs would be a big help for many of our clients (universities/colleges) and even SPs themselves like us on the commercial side.

    • Data from this would be helpful for next round of BE
    • Have good contacts w dev team at Microsoft

  •   Seamless Access update, https://seamlessaccess.org/ (Albert)
    •  Looking at 3 new attributes , category for anonymous, where can’t release any attribute,
      then SP can say not getting any personal info at all from the IDP
  • Lessons Being Learned
    •  Suggestion that we set a time after the COVID-19 emergency is resolved, to engage the community on lessons learned, what worked and did not, what global defaults should we work on setting. This may be a CTAB effort
    •   every working group could look at lessons learned

Next CTAB Call:   Tuesday April 7, 2020, 1pm ET, note there is a shift for Europe due to Daylight Savings

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