Track circulation of a token in ethereum blockchain using web3 / rpc - token

I create my own token and I need to watch the entire circulation of this token. Exchanges can be in the shape of a tree. Having the address of a participant, I have to find the whole branch up to him. That's how they got those tokens at him. I have to see the transactions' hashes, and I know only contract address and wallet address of a participant.
Can it be resolved using web3 / rpc? An example of a tree that might be, just here will be my token.

Related

How does keycloak determine which signature algorithm to use?

I'm writing an application that uses keycloak as its user authentication service. I have normal users, who log in to keycloak from the frontend (web browsers), and service users, who log in from the backend (PHP on IIS). However, when I log in from the backend, keycloak uses HS256 as its signature algorithm for the access token, and thus rejects it for further communication because RS256 is set in the realm and client settings. To get around this issue, I would like to "pretend to be the frontend" to get RS256 signed access tokens for my service users.
For security reasons, I cannot give the HS256 key to the application server, as it's symmetrical and too many people can access the server's code.
I am currently debugging the issue using the same user/pw/client id/grant type both on the frontend and the backend, so that cannot be the issue.
So far I have tried these with no luck:
copying the user agent
copying every single HTTP header (Host, Accept, Content-Type, User-Agent, Accept-Encoding, Connection, even Content-Length is the same as the form data is the same)
double checking if the keycloak login is successful or not - it is, it's just that it uses the wrong signature algorithm
So how does keycloak determine which algorithm to sign tokens with? If it's different from version to version, where should I look in keycloak's code for the answer?
EDIT: clarification of the flow of login and reasons why backend handles it.
If a user logs in, this is what happens:
client --[login data]--> keycloak server
keycloak server --[access and refresh token with direct token granting]--> client
client --[access token]--> app server
(app server validates access token)
app server --[data]--> client
But in some occasions the fifth step's data is the list of users that exist in my realm. The problem with this is that keycloak requires one to have the view-users role to list users, which only exists in the master realm, so I cannot use the logged in user's token to retrieve it.
For this case, I created a special service user in the master realm that has the view-users role, and gets the data like this:
client --[asks for list of users]--> app server
app server --[login data of service user]--> keycloak server
keycloak server --[access token with direct granting]-->app server
app server --[access token]--> keycloak server's get user list API endpoint
(app server filters detailed user data to just a list of usernames)
app server --[list of users]--> client
This makes the the list of usernames effectively public, but all other data remains hidden from the clients - and for security/privacy reasons, I want to keep it this way, so I can't just put the service user's login data in a JS variable on the frontend.
In the latter list, step 4 is the one that fails, as step 3 returns a HS256 signed access token. In the former list, step 2 correctly returns an RS256 signed access token.
Thank you for the clarification. If I may, I will answer your question maybe differently than expected. While you focus on the token signature algorithm, I think there are either mistakes within your OAuth2 flows regarding their usage, or you are facing some misunderstanding.
The fact that both the backend and frontend use "Direct Access Granting" which refers to the OAuth2 flow Resources Owner Credentials Grant is either a false claim or is a mistake in your architecture.
As stated by Keycloak's own documentation (but also slightly differently in official OAuth.2 references):
Resource Owner Password Credentials Grant (Direct Access Grants) ... is used by REST clients that want to obtain a token on behalf of a
user. It is one HTTP POST request that contains the credentials of the
user as well as the id of the client and the client’s secret (if it is
a confidential client). The user’s credentials are sent within form
parameters. The HTTP response contains identity, access, and refresh
tokens.
As far as I can see the application(s) and use case(s) you've described do NOT need this flow.
My proposal
Instead what I'd have seen in your case for flow (1) is Authorization Code flow ...
assuming that "Client" refers to normal users in Browser (redirected to Keycloak auth. from your front app)
and assuming you do not actually need the id and access tokens back in your client, unless you have a valid reasonable reason. As the flows allowing that are considered legacy/deprecated and no more recommended. In this case, we would be speaking of Implicit Flow (and Password Grant flow is also discouraged now).
So I think that the presented exchange (first sequence with points 1 to 5 in your post) is invalid at some point.
For the second flow (backend -> list users), I'd propose two modifications:
Allow users to poll the front end application for the list of users and in turn the front-end will ask the backend to return it. The backend having a service account to a client with view-roles will be able to get the required data:
Client (logged) --> Request list.users to FRONTEND app --> Get list.users from BACKEND app
(<--> Keycloak Server)
<----------------------------------------- Return data.
Use Client Credentials Grant (flow) for Backend <> Keycloak exchanges for this use case. The app will have a service account to which you can assign specific scopes+roles. It will not work on-behalf of any user (even though you could retrieve the original requester another way!) but will do its work in a perfectly safe manner and kept simple. You can even define a specific Client for these exchanges that would be bearer-only.
After all if you go that way you don't have to worry about tokens signature or anything like that. This is handled automatically according to the scheme, flow and parties involved. I believe that by incorrectly making use of the flows you end up having to deal with tricky token issues. According to me that is the root cause and it will be more helpful than focusing on the signature problem. What do you think?
Did I miss something or am I completely wrong...?
You tell me.

How does a JWT token with an empty payload work?

I'm working with the Snapchat API to try and log into an app using their OAuth flow. Once the user is logged in via Snapchat, I'm trying to reverse engineer (since they have no documentation on this) how to obtain some sort of unique ID for the user so I can associate them with a local user in my database. This is how I have previously done this with things like Facebook. The user logs in and gets an access token via the Facebook Api, and I can extract some kind of unique ID for the user via the Facebook API.
The Snapchat API only allows you to access the user's display name and some "externalId", which I cannot guarantee won't change. So I decoded the JWT token that Snapchat issued to me and it challenged my understanding of how JWT tokens work. When I decoded the token at http://jwt.io, I saw that the payload was empty, yet the token works when calling the https://kit.snapchat.com/v1/me endpoint. How is the snapchat server able to identify who I am? I've always had the understanding that the JWT must include a claim such as sub which identifies the user. The server can then use that information to know who I am.
In this case, my JWT payload is empty, but the aforementioned endpoint still returns my user data. What is happening here? How does the server know who I am when my JWT token has an empty payload? To me they must be storing a copy of my JWT token on the server, which seems like the incorrect way to use JWT tokens. Perhaps my understanding is terribly wrong. Any thoughts?
The payload of a JWS (signed token) can be detached and transmited to the audience by other means.
This feature is described in the Appendix F of the specification.
With the JWS compact serialization mode (the most common format), a token looks like THE_HEADER.THE_PAYLOAD.THE_SIGNATURE. With a detached payload it is identical except that THE_PAYLOAD is an empty string: THE_HEADER..THE_SIGNATURE.
The verification of the signature is the same as with an attached payload. The receiver should have received the payload and must recreate the full input i.e. THE_HEADER.THE_PAYLOAD.
Regarding the identification performed by snapshat, a reference to the detached payload may be set in a header parameter of the token (first part of the token) allowing Snapchat to fully verify the token.

OAuth2 Implementation

This is a bit of a theoretical question, however I'll try to be as detailed as possible. I've read a bunch of documentation on oath2/SSO implementation(I know they're not the same)- so I need to get beyond hand-wavy to actual system design. So here's what I think an Oauth2 implementation should look like.
The core design involves a bunch of micro services(which I'm calling app here) that all use the same authorization server.
To my understanding these are the end-points an auth server is supposed to provide.
Authorization Server
End point for an app to register -> Once registered the app is provided a client Id and client secret(these are essentially permanent
and don't change.
Endpoint for an user to register -> This request should come with the client Id and client secret so that the authorization server can
associate an user with an app.
Endpoint for an user to login -> If the user is an authorized user then he/she is provided an access token.
Endpoint with user details -> If an authorized app(correct client ID and secret) makes a request with an authorized user(correct access
token) then an user blob is returned.
Resource server(App)
Now that the resource server has this basic user data it can
deserialize the JSON object into its own user class and then have
one-to-one mapping to things like user_address/user_location etc.
This is my understanding of Oauth2-SSO. I'd highly appreciate some help around the rough edges. TIA !!!
I haven't implemented oath2 myself but the system I work on does use it, what you describe seems to be the same as what we use;
We initialize the client with an endpoint and the client secret and ID, then use our user's credentials to get a token (or an error message if the user/client credentials are invalid). From there we use the app's endpoints to call our applications. From what I can see our Oauth2 methods seem to do what you describe in your question, it should be correct.

Widget LTI -> API Authentication

I am working on an LTI widget, that then needs to authenticate to the API to get additional information.
I'm struggling with trying to figure out how to process the API user authentication, and redirect back retaining the LTI information.
The request string that is returned looks like:
Array ( [x_a] => **********************
[x_b] => **********************
[x_c] => *********************************** )
The issue is that I have my PHP LTI script setup to only load if it meets the following condition:
if(!isset($_REQUEST['lis_outcome_service_url'])
|| !isset($_REQUEST['lis_result_sourcedid'])
|| !isset($_REQUEST['oauth_consumer_key'])
)
x_a is the user id, x_b is the user key .. what is x_c?
Any suggestions appreciated!
My answer is referring to the detailed topic on the IDKey Auth scheme for the Valence dev platform.
The part of the auth sequence you are referring to here is equivalent to the second stage of the sequence, just after the user has successfully authenticated themselves (when you chain on the back of an LTI launch like this, you know that the user driving the user-agent has already authenticated, because they wouldn't have otherwise been able to do the LTI launch) and the service sends back the long-lived user tokens to your service.
See steps 5 to 7 in the sequence notes, in the section called Using a third-party web application in the IDKey Authentication docs topic:
x_a={tokenID} – Unique ID associated with the long-lived token: the web application can provide this ID so that the service can precisely locate the web application/user context.
x_b={tokenKey} – Key associated with the long-lived token: the web application can use this as a key to generating session signatures.
x_c={tokenSig} – Token identity signature: the service joins (and delimits with an ampersand) the User ID (tokenID) and the User Key (tokenKey) to use as the base-string, and uses the Application Key as the key.
Note that you will need to use your Valence Application ID/Key pair in order to verify the token signature contained in x_c.
Remote plugins. Note that the Brightspace Remote Plugin service is a convenience service wrapper around LTI/external learning tools. The docs about Remote Plugins contain a fairly detailed walkthrough/sample that showcases a simple Python web-service Tool Provider implementation that receives a Brightspace LTI launch, and can turn around and use Valence API calls to get more information. You might find it useful to have a close look at that.

Handling login functionality for native app connecting to web service

After extensive research, I have not been able to find a clear answer to my question. Firstly, can anyone tell me the basic logic of handling "login functionality" for a native iphone app connecting to a web service? For instance, the facebook app ask for a username and password immediately after launch, and from there you have full access to your account in all successive views of the app. Each time you post something etc, you do not have to re-login... Can someone please explain this process to me? Is it done through cookies or sessions? is Keychain involved?
I have a semi-working app right now but I'm almost positive I could be doing it better and more securely. Here is what I'm doing:
1) Set up a local server with a database of users (username and password columns and other tables etc.) using mysql. Wrote a simple web-service that takes in POST data and queries the database to check that the username exists... and if it does, that the passwords are equal. Using sha1 hashing. Echo true or false accordingly.
2) My app has an initial login screen with a 2 textfields (1 for username and 1 for password) and a button that calls the login method. My login method does the following:
init an *NSURL with a string (the url of my web service: #"http://webservice.com/login.php")
init an *ASIFormDataRequst with that url
set the post value with the password and email text in the text fields
set the delegate to itself
call startAsycronous on the request
implemented the requestFininshed method to retrieve the "true" or "false" echo-ed from the webservice
depending on the response, move forward to the next view, else, make an alert telling the user to retry
So, my questions are:
1) Is this secure for sending passwords? (via ASIHTTPRequest and the POST method?)
2) In the succeeding views, the user should be able to interact with their account (like posting messages and status's and pictures on the Facebook) How do I persist the user's logged in status so that every time the user interacts with the database, I can ensure that the user is still logged in and that it's the same user? For instance, the only way I can think of doing this is if I store a cookie on the users device with the username and password, and then every successive interaction with the web service / database, it does an authentication with the cookie values (username and password).
There has got to be a better way of doing this? Maybe sessions or cookies? or by using keychain??
Thanks for the help guys, and sorry for the long question!
Here are my thoughts based on what I know:
1) Is this secure for sending passwords? (via ASIHTTPRequest and the POST method?)
You need to make sure you are sending this information via https (SSL) and not a plain Http. The reason is, you don't have control over where the user wireless access point is. For all you know, the user could connect to open access point that is belong to a particular hacker. Having it transmitted will enable him to sniff the packet and get the required information to access the WebService even though the password is hashed. Having it send via https would ensure that the packet is encrypted with strong key. Even if a hacker manage to sniff the packet out, it will take him a long time before he/she is able to decrypt the message.
In the succeeding views, the user should be able to interact with their account (like posting > messages and status's and pictures on the Facebook) How do I persist the user's logged in status > so that every time the user interacts with the database, I can ensure that the user is still logged in
and that it's the same user?
One commonly employed method to do this is to get the session token after the user logged in. That is, you create a random generated ID that you return upon successful login. You would then map this token with the user id in the backend and it is associated with a session time out. You refresh this time out every time the user connects to a webservice and time it out after certain period to avoid breach of security. You would then persist the session token in your device and then used that for subsequent call. As long the session is alive then the user is logged in. As the token is associated with a specific user, you also ensure the identity of the caller.
To prevent someone else using other people token is the reason why you need SSL to secure the channel and prevent sniffing. Assuming that you have secured your connection channels, the only way to get the token is
to verify the identity via login
The phone is stolen by hackers who could take the token by inspecting the local storage.
The mapping is necessary so you could validate the token is a real token that has been associated with the user via login activity. Furthermore,for number 2, you can offer remote wipe out feature that basically kills the mapping and making that token invalid.
Another very important part of this token is the token cannot be guessable and have to be random cryptographically (see Randomness Recommendations for Security). If the token is only based on pseudo randomness, a clever hacker might be able to guess its algorithm and can guess its next/previous token and has a possibility of obtaining any valid token in the table.
There are many algorithm to generate this token. For example, Java Programming Language provides a SecureRandom class in order to provide cryptographically randomness and .NET has similar secure RandomGenerator class.
If you want to look at the algorithm OATH has proposed Time-Based One-Time Password Algorithm (TOTP) which is an extension of HOTP. Most of the languages/platforms would have the cryptographically strong random generator that you could leverage immediately though without you having to write it yourself.
Depending on your service implementation/platform, you might want to ask SO for a suitable class/module for cryptographically random generator such as the one asked here "How do you generate cryptographically secure random numbers with php"

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