I’m not going to describe this story too much, but here’s your intro: the year is 1977. Four boys sneak into an abandoned house. They find a newspaper from 1938 and a family that has seemingly vanished. The story that starts with unauthorized access unfolds from there.
I highly suggest turning the lights down this fall as the chill wind starts to blow across the landscape (except here in Texas, of course), and listening to this masterpiece of oral narrative from This American Life.
On to more authorization news of note:
Upcoming Events
October, as always, is *packed* with events related to authorization:
Authenticate 2024 (October 14-16) - Authentication is the focus (obviously) at the annual FIDO-hosted conference in California
OpenID Foundation Workshop (October 28) - Updates from the various OpenID working groups (looking at you, AuthZen)
Internet Identity Workshop (October 29-31) - Unconference that covers anything and everything identity-related.
IIW is the birthplace of this newsletter, and w hope to have another AuthZ Meetup in Mountain View.
Not technically in October, but back to back with IIW so I’m including it:
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 121 (November 3-8)- OAuth, SPICE, WIMSE, RATS (my favorite working group acronym by far) all gather to discuss the latest drafts of standards that influence identity (and authorization)
Replays
ABAC to School: The Basics of ABAC Policy Modeling, recording of David and Mark covering the basics of policy-driven authorization and best practices for policy authoring.
Axiomatics’ Policy Companion is now general available, and available for a test drive at your own pace.
We Welcome Our New AI Agent Overlords?
There’s been a spate of articles and news around the rise of AI Agents . . .
Good collection of recent articles and pieces on AI Agents (Come for the articles, ignore the LinkedIn hype vibe.) Bonus: mention of Graph-based approaches for all those who celebrate.
Vendors are starting pay attention to the space (or are being told to.)
Finally, here’s an organized approach to classification of these agents into broad areas of use case / need (from Y Combinator)
NB: If you wind up listening to the podcast (and you most certainly should) let me know —I’d love to discuss it with y’all.
Have news or something you think should be noted in this newsletter? Use this form to let us know.