Security Strength Factor

[Dieter Kluenter <dieter@incode.com>]

Hello,
what is the precise definition of SSF, I know it "indicates a relative
strength of protection", but protection of what and protection by
whom?
To be more precise, I understood that a SASL SSF: 56 indicates DES
encrytion as used by kerberos when applying sasl mechanism GSSAPI, but
a sasl mechanism EXTERNAL results in SASL SSF: 0 as following examples
indicate

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.-.-
SASL/GSSAPI authentication started
SASL username: dieter@AVCI.DE
SASL SSF: 56
SASL installing layers
.-.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.-.-.-.-.-..--
-..-.-.-.-.-.-.--.--.-.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.
SASL/EXTERNAL authentication started
SASL username: Email=dieter@l4b.de,CN=Dieter Kluenter\2Cou=partner\2Cou=users\2Co=avci\2Cc=de,OU=ldapclient,O=avci,L=Hamburg,ST=Germany,C=DE
SASL SSF: 0
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

How is SSF:0 interpreted in above example?

-Dieter


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Dieter Kluenter  | Systemberatung
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