Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:29892
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: pass (pb1.pair.com: domain gmail.com designates 66.249.92.168 as permitted sender)
DomainKey-Status: bad
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws;
        d=gmail.com; s=beta;
        h=received:message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:cc:subject:references:in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding;
        b=NVJZjgBHGiPqI77cDBpEVjplupGQrkHoyU5/mgKuEKT7OtvADM5V/Y+nV9BoD9k/sSqpTLyDUq5zrKDesS0gFP8YdTfoYu0xNZz/PclsTzfgurQ+Qejmrd9uqBv5FwNjvLwcSAXXUirwZEPupK9+fq6sW2Ba2Pkij7C6eophVnE=
Message-ID: <465C88DC.8030704@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 21:11:08 +0100
User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 (Windows/20061207)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Rasmus Lerdorf <rasmus@lerdorf.com>
CC: Stanislav Malyshev <stas@zend.com>,  internals@lists.php.net
References: <465C5D1D.7040206@gmail.com>  <465C6002.5080209@lerdorf.com>	 <1180462052.6874.204.camel@blobule>  <465C6D83.5000000@lerdorf.com> <1180463687.6874.210.camel@blobule> <465C7C99.4000707@lerdorf.com> <465C7E2C.4030601@gmail.com> <465C7F1E.3010605@zend.com> <465C850D.9070807@lerdorf.com> <465C8641.5040507@zend.com> <465C87E0.8040602@lerdorf.com>
In-Reply-To: <465C87E0.8040602@lerdorf.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Session security
From: stuttle@gmail.com (Stut)

Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:
> Stanislav Malyshev wrote:
>>> The session store is just a session store.  It is not a
>>> login/authentication mechanism and thus doesn't have any of the
>>> protections you might want to add to that.  Therefore a separate
>>> authentication cookie is needed that can separate the two concepts
>> I don't see how it's "therefore". Yes, session is just a storage. But
>> how you derive from it that authentication information can not be stored
>> in this storage and how the separate cookie is helping you in any way
>> make it more secure?
> 
> Because you don't have full control over the session cookie since it is
> generated by PHP.  For an authentication cookie you want to layer other
> application-specific checks on top of it.

I'm still unclear on how you validate that the authentication cookie 
came from the same client machine as the one the application first sent 
it to, which was the core of my question.

The answer seems to be that you can't do it reliably.

-Stut