3 ms·

I wish people would stop saying authz instead of authorization.

by toxik 6y ago

motohagiography 6y ago
Since it tends to be used in the same sentence as authentication, and the differeces are both subtle and hugely important, the visual Z vs. N is helpful, and even pronouncing it is helpful to maintain the distinction. They are so easy to conflate that it can create a lot of confusion whereby a semantic difference quickly becomes a category error.
- rrdharan 6y ago
  “Permission” vs “identity” while not perfect is at least more distinguishable...
  - motohagiography 6y ago
    I'd tend to agree, though since they are terms of art that are technical concepts instead of business level permission and identity, we haven't been able to do much better in the field. IDPs, RPs, PDP/PEP's define them a bit more as architectural terms, but the security field has a convention of creating stupid and unnecessary abstractions. The reason is twofold. The first is that the field claims origin in compartmentalized military intelligence culture where code words were used to manage compartmentalization, and in-effect, maintain a necessary level of ignorance between projects, which is as tediously bureaucratic and immensely irritating as it sounds. The second is the business runs on stories, so if you can abstract a dynamic into a new quirky name, you can claim to have discovered it. So yes we should have better words for things, but being better at what we do would risk solving a problem that too many people make a living managing, and so, here we are. An industry of internet duct cleaners.
- toxik 6y ago
  I don't find the two words easy to mix up at all. Does anyone, really? Auth-oriz-ation Auth-entic-ation You give one glance to the middle of the word and it's clear. Maybe an ergonomic argument could be made like the case of internationalization/i18n and localization/l10n I think the price is too steep though, for auth[NZ] and [il]1[08]n. Maybe I'm just old and curmudgeonly.

I wish people would stop saying authz instead of authorization.

by toxik 6y ago

I wish people would stop saying authz instead of authorization.

Since it tends to be used in the same sentence as authentication, and the differeces are both subtle and hugely important, the visual Z vs. N is helpful, and even pronouncing it is helpful to maintain the distinction. They are so easy to conflate that it can create a lot of confusion whereby a semantic difference quickly becomes a category error.

rrdharan 6y ago
“Permission” vs “identity” while not perfect is at least more distinguishable...
- motohagiography 6y ago
  I'd tend to agree, though since they are terms of art that are technical concepts instead of business level permission and identity, we haven't been able to do much better in the field. IDPs, RPs, PDP/PEP's define them a bit more as architectural terms, but the security field has a convention of creating stupid and unnecessary abstractions. The reason is twofold. The first is that the field claims origin in compartmentalized military intelligence culture where code words were used to manage compartmentalization, and in-effect, maintain a necessary level of ignorance between projects, which is as tediously bureaucratic and immensely irritating as it sounds. The second is the business runs on stories, so if you can abstract a dynamic into a new quirky name, you can claim to have discovered it. So yes we should have better words for things, but being better at what we do would risk solving a problem that too many people make a living managing, and so, here we are. An industry of internet duct cleaners.
toxik 6y ago
I don't find the two words easy to mix up at all. Does anyone, really? Auth-oriz-ation Auth-entic-ation You give one glance to the middle of the word and it's clear. Maybe an ergonomic argument could be made like the case of internationalization/i18n and localization/l10n I think the price is too steep though, for auth[NZ] and [il]1[08]n. Maybe I'm just old and curmudgeonly.