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In our last post, we talked about the overall concept of Identity Dark Matter - the invisible mass of accounts, apps, and controls your IAM can’t see but still depends on.Now let’s talk about why it exists. I was going back and forth on how to articulate it in an easily consumable way and landed on the mind and body problem. Like the human mind and body, your IAM and your applications don’t always agree on what’s real.
The Disconnect
IAM is the “mind.” It defines policies, intent, and perception of control.
Applications are the “body.” They execute code, run logic, and carry secrets from a decade ago.
And between them lives the same kind of confusion philosophers have argued about for centuries:How do you connect what should happen with what actually happens?
That gap - betweenIAM’s consciousness and the app’s behavior - is where identity dark matter forms.
How It Shows Up
- The IAM says “SSO only.” The app still allows local login.
- The IAM says “user removed.” The app still runs scheduled tasks under that account.
- The IAM says “policy enforced.” The binary quietly bypasses it.
Each invisible behavior adds gravity to your dark matter - hidden, powerful, and increasingly dangerous.
Some Real-World Evidence
You can see it in recent breaches:
- Config files full of admin secrets -invisible to IAM.
- OAuth trust abused by a malicious connector -policy said “safe,” binary said otherwise.
- Embedded keys and credentials in code - IAM was never in that conversation.
These are allsymptoms of the same disease:
The mind (IAM) assumed control. The body (the app) did something else.
What’s Actually Causing the Dark Matter
Dark matter isn’t just “things IAM can’t see.”
It’s the natural byproduct of systems that were never designed to communicate at the same layer.
IAM operates on users, roles, and policies.
Applications operate on tokens, code paths, and runtime conditions.
Until you observe the body directly - at the binary level- you’re just guessing about how identity really behaves.
Toward a Unified Consciousness
Solving this isn’t about more connectors or policies.
It’s about bridging the philosophical divide: connecting IAM’s intent to the app’s execution.
That’s where instrumentation comes in.
By mapping authentication and authorization at the binary level, you finally give IAM sensory input - a way to feel what’s actually happening.
To summarize
Your IAM doesn’t just lack visibility.
It’s just surrounded by dark matter - unobserved, ungoverned, quietly shaping everything around it.
The universe accepted that reality long ago.
It’s time your IAM did too.
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