42 IBM Business Process Manager Security: Concepts and Guidance
3.1 Subjects and Principals
The definitions of the terms Subject and Principal appear to vary from one technology and/or
author to the next, but for our purposes we can simplify this by asserting the following
distinction:
A Subject is any actor who is requesting access to some object
A Principal is a way of representing who this actor is
So, for example, if you (the Subject) attempt to log into a WebSphere Application Server
protected web page (the object), you may type in your user ID and password (a Principal). Or,
if your environment has been so configured, your browser may present a Kerberos token (a
Principal) which your operating system created upon your behalf when you ...