The 2017 REFEDS Great Identity Debate is scheduled for 3:00 PM, Monday, April 26.

The debate resolution is:

“SAML based Identity Federations have been operated at NRENS for over 10 years.  This house contends that the current architecture for SAML federations is outdated and must be replaced within the next 3 years”.

Debate Step-by-step guide for the Affirmative Case

This is a policy debate, based up on this published format.  Typical debate formats involve an affirmative team that must promote a case for the affirmation of the resolution.  The negative side only has to argue against the case set forth by the affirmative side, but sometimes will provide counter policy proposal.  

  1. Possible Affirmative Case arguments (to be broadened by the affirmative team).  We need only two affirmative arguments.
    1. Current Architecture of SAML Federations is outdated:
      1. description of the current SAML architecture. 
      2. examples of what "outdated" means (these are wild examples, need to be refined)
        1. identity assertions from organizations no longer reliable
        2. movement towards user self-assertions
        3. authentication remains the weak point for researchers
        4. "SAML is Dead" discussion point from the REFEDS 2016 Technology Exchange 
          1. gather the points from this meeting
        5. "Who is Responsible for maintaining Metadata Quality?" discussion point from the REFEDS 2016 Technology Exchange 
        6. Risk in Identity attribute release: https://learn.nsrc.org/fedidm/risk
        7. European privacy law impact on collaboration in Identity (GDPR)
        8. There are "better" technologies - after all if Google etc use OIDC who are we to argue?
      3. what is good with current SAML 2.0 and should be argued to remain the the architecture in anticipation of counter arguments by the negative
    2. Must be replaced within 3 years:
      1. Replaced with what? EduGAIN?  See https://refeds.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/JRA3-TechEx.pptx
      2. Can it be replaced in 3 years given global adoption trends?
  2. The key to success in this debate is to have an understanding of cases and background, since audience questions will be included.

Related articles

A description of Team Policy Debate Style: http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/debformats.html

A description of British Parlimentary Debate Style: http://www.apdaweb.org/old/guide/rules.html

A six-minute video of the BP format

Team Policy Debate

 

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