Hi,

I have a historical question around front channel / back channel (direct) 
communications and Authorization Requests.  Both the code-flow and 
implicit-flow utilize a front channel communication through the UA.  This makes 
sense for the delegated credentials case (e.g. shutterfly accessing photos on 
facebook).

I'm in the native app / client market, and the RO password credentials flow 
fits really well ... expect it's limited to passwords.  I've been well educated 
(by lots of folks on this list) about the "best practices" to enable native 
clients to use the code flow, e.g. registering a custom callback URI and 
register my native app ass the handler for that URI.

But ... (and not knowing the history behind all this), it seems that OAuth was 
designed for confidential clients, and was "retro-fitted" to make native apps 
work.  And it just feels a bit like a hack to me (albeit a workable one), the 
whole custom callback URI thing, to get it to work.  The RO password 
credentials seems like a much better fit for native apps, since it has no need 
for the UA and can use back channel / direction communication to talk to the AS 
and obtain and access token.  But that limits me to a password and eliminates 
any chance of strong authentication.

It would seem more straight forward to define a back channel flow such that a 
native client could send off an authorization request with response=token (or 
id_token in the Connect case), respond to a challenge from the AS for 
authentication, and obtain a response containing the access_token / id_token 
and use it for its RESTful API communications with the RS/RP.  This would 
enable strong authentication methods not possible using just RO passwords.

Has anybody else ever expressed interest in such back channel calls between for 
native clients?  Was it previously considered and dropped?

Tx!
adam
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