Policy Glossary

Browse 38 policy terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

38 Policy Terms

Actor-Critic
A reinforcement learning architecture where one network chooses actions and another estimates their value. It influences how models are trained, evaluated, or...
AI Alignment Debate
The ongoing argument over how serious AI alignment risks are, what kinds of harms matter most, and how systems should be governed or constrained.
AI Ethics Board
A formal internal or external group tasked with reviewing AI-related risks, policies, and ethical concerns around deployment.
Attribute-Based Access Control
An access-control model where authorization decisions are based on attributes of the user, resource, action, and environment rather than only on fixed roles....
CASB
CASB is a cloud access security broker that enforces visibility and policy between users and cloud services. Security teams use it to enforce trust, reduce...
Cloud Access Security Broker
Cloud Access Security Broker is a policy-enforcement layer that sits between users and cloud services to improve visibility and control. Security teams use it...
Community Guidelines
A published set of rules and norms describing acceptable behavior in a community, platform, or forum. Good community guidelines help moderators act...
Data Loss Prevention
Data Loss Prevention is technology and policy used to identify sensitive data and prevent unauthorized disclosure or movement. Security teams use it to enforce...
Deterministic Policy
A reinforcement learning policy that maps each state to one specific action rather than a probability distribution. It influences how models are trained,...
Digital Sovereignty
The idea that a country, region, or organization should retain meaningful control over its digital infrastructure, data, platforms, and strategic technology...
Disclosure Policy
A published policy explaining how security researchers or outsiders should report vulnerabilities, what behavior is allowed, and how the organization will...
DLP
DLP is data loss prevention technology that identifies sensitive data and enforces rules on transfer, storage, or sharing. Security teams use it to enforce...
DMARC
DMARC is an email authentication policy standard that builds on SPF and DKIM to tell receivers how to handle failing mail. Security teams use it to enforce...
Email Authentication
Email Authentication is the set of mechanisms used to verify whether email claiming a domain is legitimately authorized by that domain. Security teams use it...
Error Budget
The allowed amount of unreliability based on SLO targets — if your SLO is 99.9% availability, your error budget is 0.1% (about 43 minutes per month). When the...
Execution Policy
A PowerShell safety feature that determines whether scripts are allowed to run and under what conditions. Not a security boundary — it is designed to prevent...
Firewall Rules
Firewall Rules is ordered network policy statements that allow, deny, or log traffic based on attributes such as source and port. Security teams use it to...
Grace Period
Grace Period is a limited window in which access or configuration remains temporarily valid before stricter enforcement begins. Security teams use it to...
Gray Area
A situation where the boundaries, rules, or responsibilities are not clearly defined. In engineering slang, gray areas are where ownership confusion and policy...
Ingress Filtering
Ingress Filtering is network policy that restricts inbound traffic based on source, destination, protocol, or routing expectations. Security teams use it to...
Minimum Security Baseline
The lowest acceptable set of security controls, settings, and practices that systems or environments must meet before they are considered compliant or trusted....
NAC
NAC is network access control that decides whether a device can join a network based on identity and posture. Security teams use it to enforce trust, reduce...
Network Access Control
Network Access Control is policy enforcement that decides whether a device or user may connect to a network and with what restrictions. Security teams use it...
Network Policy
A defined rule set controlling which network communications are allowed between systems, services, namespaces, or endpoints. The term is commonly used in...
Open Policy Agent
A general-purpose policy engine used to enforce declarative rules across infrastructure, APIs, and software systems.
Overton Window AI
A way of describing which AI ideas, risks, or deployment practices are currently treated as mainstream, fringe, or newly acceptable in public discourse.
Password Aging
The tracking of how long a password has existed since it was last changed, often used in policies that flag or force rotation of older credentials. Password...
Password Complexity
The rules or characteristics that define how varied a password's characters must be, such as length, symbol use, and mixture of character types. Complexity...
Password Expiration
A policy requiring passwords to be changed after a set period of time, whether or not compromise is known. Password expiration remains common in some regulated...
Password History
A control that remembers previously used passwords so users cannot immediately reuse them when changing credentials. Password history is often paired with...
Password Strength
The practical resistance of a password to guessing, brute force, and dictionary attacks based on its length, unpredictability, and whether it follows common...
Permissionless Innovation
The idea that new products and services should be able to launch and experiment without needing prior approval from incumbents or central gatekeepers. The...
Policy as Code
The practice of expressing security or compliance rules in machine-readable policies that can be tested and enforced automatically. It shows up in application...
Policy Engine
A service or library that evaluates declarative policy rules and returns allow, deny, or advisory decisions. It shows up in application security, identity,...
Regulatory Risk
The risk that laws, regulation, enforcement actions, or licensing requirements will materially hurt the business model or growth path. Regulatory risk is...
Removable Media Policy
An organization's rules governing the use of USB drives, external disks, memory cards, and similar portable storage devices. These policies are used to reduce...
Responsible Disclosure
The practice of privately notifying a vendor about a vulnerability and giving them reasonable time to patch it before publicly disclosing the details. A middle...
Right to Repair
A movement and policy position arguing that users and independent shops should have access to the parts, tools, manuals, and legal rights needed to repair...

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