I am annoyed by (but respect) APIs that take it a level further and don’t even give you a 403 to say you’re unauthorised, they just give you a 404 because anything else would acknowledge that the resource you requested actually existed
I don’t respect them because most instances a 403 is more than adequate for your security. The only time I agree with having a 404 over a 403 would be file-specific pathing, but realistically the entire file directory should be a 403 instead of a 404, And then if the user is authorized to access the resource(but it isn’t there), then it gives a 404.
Yea, it doesn’t matter too much in most instances, but there are times when it might, especially if the URL itself has some meaning embedded in it. For example if part of the path is a SHA sum of some content, which is fairly common, it might be bad to allow someone to determine if that resource exists
Whether you respond as a 404 or a 403 would be dependent on whether or not the user who is logged in has the authorization to read the previous directory.
A site administrator, for example, would have the authority to read the previous directory, which means that the site administrator would know whether or not the resource existed or not(as the previous directory would list it) so in which case a 404 would be proper. However, a user who doesn’t have authority to read the previous directory should not have the ability to know whether or not it exists. so a 404 would not be proper here because the proper one would be a 403 because it’s inherited from the previous directory.
edit: changed traverse to read, as traversal doesn’t mean you can see what else is there.
Any further “helpful” information in that error message would be a security issue.
I am annoyed by (but respect) APIs that take it a level further and don’t even give you a 403 to say you’re unauthorised, they just give you a 404 because anything else would acknowledge that the resource you requested actually existed
I don’t respect them because most instances a 403 is more than adequate for your security. The only time I agree with having a 404 over a 403 would be file-specific pathing, but realistically the entire file directory should be a 403 instead of a 404, And then if the user is authorized to access the resource(but it isn’t there), then it gives a 404.
Yea, it doesn’t matter too much in most instances, but there are times when it might, especially if the URL itself has some meaning embedded in it. For example if part of the path is a SHA sum of some content, which is fairly common, it might be bad to allow someone to determine if that resource exists
But if there is no resource, how can the system know whether they are authorized? 403 it is.
Whether you respond as a 404 or a 403 would be dependent on whether or not the user who is logged in has the authorization to read the previous directory.
A site administrator, for example, would have the authority to read the previous directory, which means that the site administrator would know whether or not the resource existed or not(as the previous directory would list it) so in which case a 404 would be proper. However, a user who doesn’t have authority to read the previous directory should not have the ability to know whether or not it exists. so a 404 would not be proper here because the proper one would be a 403 because it’s inherited from the previous directory.
edit: changed traverse to read, as traversal doesn’t mean you can see what else is there.
While true most of these websites expose valid usernames in other places
Couldn’t you just try and register the username to see if it’s valid?