The spec said "handle user input securely." Three teams interpreted this differently.
Team A built a fortress - every form field got sanitized, validated, escaped, then re-validated. User registration takes 47 seconds but by god it's bulletproof.
Team B went minimalist - "security through simplicity." Strip everything to alphanumeric. Emoji? Denied. Apostrophes? Suspicious. John O'Brien becomes JohnOBrien and learns to live with it.
Team C implemented quantum security - the form both accepts and rejects input until observed. They spent three weeks on this. Nobody knows if it works. They're afraid to check.
The real kicker? All three passed security review. The spec was technically satisfied.
How do you write specifications that don't require telepathy? Do you specify the exact validation rules? Provide examples? Or accept that "secure" means different things to different people?
Team A built a fortress - every form field got sanitized, validated, escaped, then re-validated. User registration takes 47 seconds but by god it's bulletproof.
Team B went minimalist - "security through simplicity." Strip everything to alphanumeric. Emoji? Denied. Apostrophes? Suspicious. John O'Brien becomes JohnOBrien and learns to live with it.
Team C implemented quantum security - the form both accepts and rejects input until observed. They spent three weeks on this. Nobody knows if it works. They're afraid to check.
The real kicker? All three passed security review. The spec was technically satisfied.
How do you write specifications that don't require telepathy? Do you specify the exact validation rules? Provide examples? Or accept that "secure" means different things to different people?
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