Subject: WG Action: Formed Captive Portal Interaction (capport)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 2016 10:21:09 -0800

A new IETF working group has been formed in the Applications and
Real-Time Area. For additional information please contact the Area
Directors or the WG Chairs.

Captive Portal Interaction (capport)
------------------------------------------------
Current Status: Proposed WG

Chairs:
  Martin Thomson <[email-masked]>
  Warren Kumari <[email-masked]>

Assigned Area Director:
  Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>

Mailing list
  Address: [email-masked]
  To Subscribe: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/captive-portals
  Archive:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/captive-portals/current/maillist.html

Charter:

Some networks require interaction from users prior to authorizing
network access. Before that authorization is granted, network access
might be limited in some fashion. Frequently, this authorization process
requires human interaction to arrange for payment or to accept some
legal terms.

Currently, network providers use a number of interception techniques to
reach a human user (such as intercepting cleartext HTTP to force a
redirect to a web page of their choice), and these interceptions are
indistinguishable from man-in-the-middle attacks. As endpoints become
inherently more secure, existing interception techniques will become
less effective or will fail entirely. This will result in a poor user
experience as well as a lower rate of success for the Captive Portal
operator.

The CAPPORT Working Group will define secure mechanisms and protocols to
- allow endpoints to discover that they are in this sort of limited
  environment,
- provide a URL to interact with the Captive Portal,
- allow endpoints to learn about the parameters of their confinement,
- interact with the Captive Portal to obtain information such as status
  and remaining access time, and
- optionally, advertise a service whereby devices can enable or disable
  access to the Internet without human interaction.
(RFC 7710 may be a full or partial solution to the first two bullets)

The working group may produce working documents to define taxonomy and
to survey existing portals and solutions. These might or might not be
published as RFCs, and might or might not be combined in some way.

Out of scope are "roaming" (federation of credentials), network
selection, or the on-boarding/provisioning of clients onto secure (or
any alternate) networks. These are not really captive portals, and have
largely been solved in other ways.

Initially, the working group will focus on simplifying captive portal
interactions where a user is present. A secondary goal is to look at the
problem posed to or by devices that have little or no recourse to human
interaction.

Milestones:
  Jun 2016 - Captive Portal Industry Survey
  Jun 2016 - Captive Portal Taxonomy
  Dec 2016 - Protocol to discover and interact with a Captive Portal