MongoDB _id safe to share?

Working with Data
1

Hello devs, how are you all doing?

I really need a small guidance.

I heard that sending _id to the front-end/client is unsafe, but some devs told me it’s safe. I really need confirmation, please. I don’t want to mess up the project.

Thanks in advance.

2

Did the ones who told you explained why it is unsafe?

3

Yes a little bit, they told it can find you machine & timestamp which could go wrong.

But as per my research, MognoDB already fixed it, otherwise why they would add _id as default with .findById functions and all.

1 Like
4

ah, i don’t know why this is unsafe though. Many locally generated ids use machine/hardware/time information to make them as unique as possible, and those ids are being passed everywhere. Some of them may even have public format standard.

2 Likes
5

Agreed, like if it’s unsafe, users need to create a new unique id/uuid and index it, which sounds expensive for multiple collections. And if it’s unsafe, then YouTube/Udemy tutorials would have already covered it, & also MongoDB wouldn’t allow it to be used.