I am a bit "meh" on the YouTube "unlisted video" example. The name itself is fairly transparent in implying that there's really no security, the video is just not listed in a public-facing way. This is significantly different than the article's billing example, where customers would be quite right in assuming their bills will be only accessible to them.
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> The name itself is fairly transparent in implying that there's really no security
A password-capability system is a password-capability system. Not requiring an account does not make it not an access control. (Though it does make it e.g. not selectively revokable, which is a known weakness of password capabilities.)
Correct me if I am misunderstanding your point but unlisted YouTube videos don’t need a password or anything to be accessed. Anyone who has the URL can access it. It’s just not indexed/searchable on YouTube.
Right. And neither do Google Docs shared by a no-login link (which used to be the only option) or for that matter RSA signing keys. You could in theory guess any of these, given all of the time in the universe (quite literally). A “password capability” is any mechanism where knowing the designation of an object (such as the “unlisted” link) is a necessary and sufficient condition to access it. The designation has to be hard to guess for the system to make sense.
(The intended contrast is with “object capabilities”, where the designation is once again necessary and sufficient but also unforgeable within the constraints of the system. Think handles / file descriptors: you can’t guess a handle to a thing that the system did not give you, specifically, a handle for.)
I get people won’t reasonably guess it, but an unlisted link is still an exposed link literally anyone with internet access can open. It’s simply not the same as a login + password, neither functionally nor technically.
The fact that this site exists says it all: https://unlistedvideos.com/indexm.html
Yeah at the end of the day the yt video isn’t under lock and key in any way, shape, or form vs. my billing info with my various utilities and such which is. It’s just “security through not knowing the exact URL (yet).”