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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




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