Every time you log into a website, unlock your phone, or prove you're not a robot, you're participating in a system that's become dizzyingly complex. Behind those simple moments—typing a password, getting a text code, scanning your face—sits an entire industry of standards and protocols: NHI (non-human identities), IAM (Identity and Access Management), SSO (Single Sign-On), MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication), RBAC (Role-Based Access Control), OAuth (Open Authorization), OIDC (OpenID Connect), SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language), and dozens more acronyms that all relate to proving you are who you say you are and determining what you're allowed to access. How did things become this complicated?