Understanding OAuth: The Historical Requirements and Design Rationale
By
cratermoon
The bagel they save for the regulars. Don't skim, savour.
Summary
The article is a response to a request for a Matt Levine-style explanation of OAuth, focusing not on the technical mechanics but on understanding why OAuth was designed the way it is and what historical requirements led to its current form. The author, who wrote the first OAuth specification 19 years ago, aims to explain the rationale behind OAuth's design by examining the cascade of requirements that shaped it, rather than just describing how it works technically.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledI desperately need a Matt Levine style explanation of how OAuth works. What is the historical cascade of requirements that got us to this place?
There are plenty of explanations of the inner mechanical workings of OAuth, and lots of explanations about how various flows etc work, but Geoffrey is asking a different question:
What I need is to understand why it is designed this way, and to see concrete examples of use cases that motivate the design
In the 19 years (!) since I wrote the first sketch of an OAuth specification, there has been a lot
You might also wanna read
Understanding WebAuthn credential protection policy and discoverable credentials
This article explains the WebAuthn credential protection policy, specifically how developers can use the `residentKey` option to control whe
Explaining the Equals Signs in Old Email Excerpts Shared on Twitter
The article explains the phenomenon of equals signs appearing in old email excerpts being shared on Twitter. The author, who has experience
lars.ingebrigtsen.no·3mo ago
mTOTP: A Manual Human-Computable Alternative to TOTP Authentication
mTOTP is an experimental, manual variant of Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP) authentication designed to be computed by humans without ele
github.com·4mo ago
Technical Insights from Building Passkeybot: Lessons on Passkey Implementation and WebAuthn
The article shares insights from building passkeybot.com, a hosted sign-in page that enables passkey authentication for websites. It explain
enzom.dev·5mo ago
Client ID Metadata Documents (CIMD): OAuth Client Identification Using URLs
Client ID Metadata Documents (CIMD) is a new OAuth approach that allows clients to identify themselves using URLs instead of requiring pre-r
client.dev·6mo ago
The Simplicity and Future of Self-Signed JWTs for Authentication
The article discusses the ease of generating self-signed JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) and JWK keypairs for authentication, highlighting the simpli
selfref.com·10mo ago