diff --git a/docs/SECURITY_DESIGN.md b/docs/SECURITY_DESIGN.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2db2a11 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/SECURITY_DESIGN.md @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +The core idea around the security design is to build for multiple authorization +levels. The core reason, surprisingly, is for easy caching. One of the ways that +many existing forums have some users invalidate a lot of caches is that they +serve up special content for moderators at the same URLs that normal users use. +This means more cache misses, intrinsically. + +To avoid this, and to improve security, functionality should be locked at +multiple security levels, so that normal moderator browsing can have some +additional features, but generally ones that can be added through loading some +additional resources, not modifying the existing page.