I didn’t understand the marketing term “zero trust” and I still don’t.

In practice, I get it - a network zone shouldn’t require a lower authn/z bar on the implicit assumption that admission to that zone must have required a higher bar.

But all these systems are built on trust, and if it isn’t based on network zoning, it’s based on something else. Maybe that other thing is better, maybe not. But it exists and it needs to be understood.

An actual zero trust system is the proverbial unpowered computer in a bunker.