A uuid is something that can be used as an id (identifier). It stands for Univerally Unique Identifier.
This has a list of all of them, because it generates every valid one.
In applications it was very common to use an auto incrementing number for id’s. So one account would have id of one, then the next two, etc… This can cause problems if there is an unautheticated api endpoint which returns user info given an ID value, someone could just put in all the Id’s counting up from one to find out all the records in the database. UUID’s are a way of obscuring that, making it pretty hard to enumerate all records if they cant count up in an orderly fashion.
It’s also useful in distributed systems, the many instances of a running service could generate an ID value on each server instance before recording the value in the the database, there is a low chance of ID collisions.
One use is in URL identifiers. If my account number is 47, for example, I could reasonably guess that accounts 1-46 exist and potentially look at other customers’ data.
But if it uses a UUID instead then it’s a lot harder to do that.
Splain Lucy. What’s the use case for these, please? Tried looking it up myself but still not sure. Thanks in advance.
A uuid is something that can be used as an id (identifier). It stands for Univerally Unique Identifier. This has a list of all of them, because it generates every valid one.
I did learn what it stood for in my travels. I wish to know the use cases for such things. Eli5 if posssible, please.
In applications it was very common to use an auto incrementing number for id’s. So one account would have id of one, then the next two, etc… This can cause problems if there is an unautheticated api endpoint which returns user info given an ID value, someone could just put in all the Id’s counting up from one to find out all the records in the database. UUID’s are a way of obscuring that, making it pretty hard to enumerate all records if they cant count up in an orderly fashion. It’s also useful in distributed systems, the many instances of a running service could generate an ID value on each server instance before recording the value in the the database, there is a low chance of ID collisions.
One use is in URL identifiers. If my account number is 47, for example, I could reasonably guess that accounts 1-46 exist and potentially look at other customers’ data.
But if it uses a UUID instead then it’s a lot harder to do that.
They are used as ids, like a post id or a user id in technology.