Friday, March 2, 2018

Chapter 2 - State Machine Story


So let's put this whole thing into a story using some of the metaphors I alluded to in the previous entry regarding State Machine. Imagine if you will, there is a client device. Let's call him Stan (get it? STAn? Nothing? Well anyway…) Stan is walking down the street looking for a place to eat dinner. In this world the restaurants all have a person outside yelling the name of the restaurant and its specialties. (This is the AP's beaconing) Stan hears a restaurant name that he thinks sounds delicious and walks up. The person outside the restaurant asks him what the password is. But poor Stan doesn't know it. So he meanders along. He turns the corner and doesn't hear anyone yelling restaurant names for a minute. So he decides to yell out and ask if any are out there (Active Probing) all of a sudden he's bombarded with restaurants who are answering his call for food. He chooses the one closest to him and walks up to the doorman outside. The doorman says to him that this isn't one of those hoity-toity restaurants that requires a passcode and probably limits the amount of food you can eat. This is a public place, so come in and have your fill. (Open System Authentication) So Stan is allowed (authenticated) into the restaurant. Inside the foyer of the restaurant there is a host who makes sure that Stan meets the bare minimum criteria of eating there. This is an old place with very old and basic requirements, and Stan being a younger up-to-date person easily meets them. The host then allows him on through to the inside of the restaurant. Upon walking through the door, Stan not only feels like he has been Authenticated, but he feels like he has a place he is truly associated to.

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