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Preface
"A scout is Trustworthy"
-The first attribute of The Scout Law (Boy Scouts of America)
In my college town, there was an auto shop called Honest-1 Auto Repair, I never once took my car to that auto shop. I didn't trust them. I have no idea if the shop was any good. but the whole idea of putting "Honest" in your name in order to make me trust you, immediately made me not trust them. In our society, we depend on trust. We trust our family members. We trust our friends. We trust that money will buy things. Human Society has always relied on trust. How do people earn our trust? How do we learn to trust others? How can we help them trust us? And most importantly, for the sake of this book, how do we trust others in an interconnected world when we communicate digitally? The answer is Authentication. Authentication is the act of providing proof something is true. Types of authentication we rely on today range from the keys to your house, to cryptographic keys to unlock a bank account, to the nuclear launch codes. Believe it or not, even our dogs authenticate us with location, sound and smell.
My purpose in writing this book is to help system engineers and software engineers understand how to properly use authentication and authorization tools. I want to help them learn when to use different forms of authentication and when they are not required. My hope is that you take this book, highlight what stands out to you, write your own notes in the margin and use the worksheets provided to help you design the perfect authentication and authorization system for your projects and businesses.