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0 pointsirl_zebra10y ago0 comments

Why should UUIDs not be exposed to users? Because of the their unwieldy look, or because of security concerns?

I ask because I have an app where previously I was accessing a particular data point via pk, and the user saw the pk in the url bar. But it could expose user/site data as any user could access that pk, or just guess at the next sequentially generated pk. I switched to uuid and now it's a little ugly in the url bar, but no data is exposed.

0 comments

ww52010y ago

I meant the key handed off to the user for human interaction. As a user I would prefer order number 7356 than 7458e3a9-716b-4352-b2e4-b5b67d0c089b.

If there's no human interaction with the key, UUID is perfectly fine.

mhd10y ago

I've seen scenarios where UUIDs were used intentionally for this, to prevent users who get a full export of table data to reference the UUID. If it's just a sequence of small integers they might them to more permanent and intrinsically tied to the data, whereas UUIDs seem more like computing artifacts.

Yeah, I know, this could easily fixed by not friggin' showing surrogate keys to those users in the first place, but, well, data integration is ugly business.

irl_zebraOP10y ago

Gotcha, just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. Makes total sense, thanks!

radagast10y ago

> But it could expose user/site data as any user could access that pk, or just guess at the next sequentially generated pk.

Using a UUID instead of a sequentially rolling integer ID isn't solving your problem, you're just doing security through obscurity. The real solution is implementing real authentication & authorization - not making the key harder to guess.

naasking10y ago

> Using a UUID instead of a sequentially rolling integer ID isn't solving your problem, you're just doing security through obscurity.

A common sentiment, but not true if your id is cryptographically random. It amounts to capability security which is the right approach to security if used comprehensively.

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