5/18/2023 0 Comments Goodway login![]() ![]() We’ve got an initial version of our browser-based route - with a passport check and knowledge-based verification - in limited beta with our partners, the Disclosure and Barring Service. So that’s what we’re working towards… at pace! So, really, my first job was to work out what already exists and negotiate myself to a position of being able to ‘steal with pride’ the excellent work that’s gone on in other departments in this area.Īs one of my key stakeholders said to me, “If you can bring the best of the best under one product set, you’re all set, you’ll be the market leader in government”. There’s a great sense of purpose and real buzz in the air. It’s full of bright, enthusiastic people who care passionately about what we’re doing and making our single sign-on and identity-checking solution as easy to use and inclusive for users as we possibly can. So what are my reflections and what have I learned? First of all, the Government Digital Service, or GDS, is a great place to be. I can’t believe it’s been a year already! I remember arriving last September and giving my first ever external-facing presentation and now we’ve got products in beta, a packed dance card for services who want to work with us, and we are well on our way to building up the product suite that our government partners have asked for. ![]() It’s been nearly a year since I became the Single Responsible Owner of the One Login for Government programme, and it’s true when they say that time flies when you’re having fun. But here’s the thing: no one department or service is doing it all well. Patterns and processes have grown up over time, and people are able to prove their identity, even though their experiences might be suboptimal, and they might face different hurdles and repetitive steps for different services. Validating somebody’s identity so they can access services is mostly a ‘solved problem’ across government. Because of this, you should never store sensitive information inside a JWT and should take other steps to ensure that JWTs are not intercepted, such as by sending JWTs only over HTTPS, following best practices, and using only secure and up-to-date libraries.Our mission to build one fast, simple and secure way for people to access government services is both relatively straightforward, and hugely complex. This doesn't mean that others weren't able to see the content, which is stored in plain text. Note that a successfully validated token only means that the information contained within the token has not been modified by anyone else. When tokens are signed using public/private key pairs, the signature also certifies that only the party holding the private key is the one that signed it.īefore a received JWT is used, it should be properly validated using its signature. In general, JWTs can be signed using a secret (with the HMAC algorithm) or a public/private key pair using RSA or ECDSA (although Auth0 supports only HMAC and RSA). As such, we will focus on signed tokens, which can verify the integrity of the claims contained within them, while encrypted tokens hide those claims from other parties. Although JWTs can also be encrypted to provide secrecy between parties, Auth0-issued JWTs are JSON Web Signatures (JWS), meaning they are signed rather than encrypted. The information contained within the JSON object can be verified and trusted because it is digitally signed. This means that it is easier to process on users' devices, especially mobile. This makes it easier to work with JWT than SAML assertions.Įasier to process: JWT is used at internet scale. Conversely, XML doesn't have a natural document-to-object mapping. More common: JSON parsers are common in most programming languages because they map directly to objects. And while SAML tokens can use public/private key pairs like JWT, signing XML with XML Digital Signature without introducing obscure security holes is very difficult when compared to the simplicity of signing JSON. A JWT can also be symmetrically signed by a shared secret using the HMAC algorithm. More secure: JWTs can use a public/private key pair in the form of an X.509 certificate for signing. This makes JWT a good choice to be passed in HTML and HTTP environments. ![]() More compact: JSON is less verbose than XML, so when it is encoded, a JWT is smaller than a SAML token. There are benefits to using JWTs when compared to simple web tokens (SWTs) and SAML tokens. ![]()
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