Worked examples · What a number is actually made of · IAM-005
Accounts nobody owns
Six defensible definitions of orphaned, run against the same 1,400 accounts. The answer moves from 203 to 632 depending only on which sentence you meant.
OpenSynthetic dataFixed seed
This run
1,400 accounts · 6 definitions · fixed seed
What the simulation shows
Every figure here is generated from a fixed seed, so the numbers on this page are the numbers in the simulation.
The entry
The problem
Orphaned account is spoken like a query and behaves like a judgement. An access review is signed against whichever definition the tool implemented.
Why it matters
The definition is almost never written into the record beside the signature, so two reports on the same estate disagree and nobody can say which is broken.
The approach
Apply six defensible definitions to one generated population, show the count each returns, and show how much any two of them agree.
Judgement calls
The page refuses to name a correct definition, because that depends on what the review is for. It also refuses to report an intersection of all six: two of the definitions in common use are mutually exclusive, so a zero there would be arithmetic rather than a finding.
Where else it applies
Any population defined by a word rather than a rule: dormant, stale, unused, legacy, shadow.
The data
Entirely synthetic, generated from a fixed seed. No person, organisation or directory appears in it.
Open the simulation
It asks for your name and email, then opens. The page carries a watermark with the name of whoever opened it.