Programming Information Titled Security

Disclaimer: This post is not about security.

Is anyone else bothered by Information titled with the word security? Let me explain what it is I am referring to. I will see an article, a blog post, or a section on a web site which claims to be about "security." I will of course be quite interested when I see this, because I think security is very important when programming. One must be careful to not leave easy ways for people to exploit one's code. I think this is an important issue and it tends to be overlooked by many software writers.

The problem is that most of the time the writing I find about "security" is in actuality information about "authentication." I understand that "security" is a word which certainly can be used to describe authentication, roles, permissions, etc. I just dislike it when it is used in such a way when talking to programmers. Since it is the best word to describe the type of security which is preventing people from exploiting the code. Preventing attacks on a system is a very important aspect of programming, and it seems to be overlooked on the Internet.

I wish people would stop titling articles, book chapters, and whatever else as "security" when it is really just "authentication."

Anyone else run into any similar situations?

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