Form-based HTTP Authentication Proof of Concept

["Timothy D. Morgan" <tmorgan () vsecurity com>]

Hello,

As a follow up to my paper advocating HTTP authentication in place of
cookies [1], I've built a simple sample application which demonstrates
how a combination of XMLHttpRequest and response code tricks can be 
used to achieve form-based login, logout, and authenticated password
changes in the four most popular browsers:
  http://www.vsecurity.com/download/tools/fbha-poc_0.1.zip

Note that this is achieved without using any checks to determine what 
browser is being used.

While this is promising, I still think we should have an HTTP-based 
log out mechanism.  In addition, the proposed W3C change to 
XMLHttpRequest authentication behavior will make this code much 
simpler.

cheers,
tim


1. http://www.vsecurity.com/download/papers/WeaningTheWebOffOfSessionCookies.pdf