Authorization Notes No. 37 min read
Permission Has a Shape
Access is only one part of authorization. A real permission also has a purpose, a scope, limits, and a time period.
Authorization Notes
A weekly series by Chuks Onwuneme about authorization as a foundation for coordination between people, organizations, services, machines, and autonomous systems.
Digital workers are the current doorway into the subject, not its boundary. Each edition uses an ordinary situation to examine how independent actors can know that another actor is allowed to do something on someone else’s behalf.
Latest edition · No. 4
Permission Has to Meet the Action
A correct authorization decision protects nothing unless the system performing the consequential action is required to honor it.
7 min read
Read the latest editionEarlier editions
- Authorization Notes No. 28 min read
Whose Instructions Is Your Digital Worker Following?
A digital worker can have legitimate access and still be persuaded to use it for a person or purpose you never authorized.
- Authorization Notes No. 19 min read
An Authenticated Digital Worker Is Not an Authorized Digital Worker
As digital workers begin acting on our behalf, identity alone will not be enough. We will also need portable, verifiable permission.