I'm working on a permission-based access project. I have a long list, in the hundreds, of permissions that will allow Administrators of the system to customize permission groups for individual users. What UI delivers the best experience for navigating and selecting from a large number of permissions?

---

My Dilemma

It is obviously not a great experience to display a single list of 100+ permissions with checkboxes for whether or not that permission should be given to a user. I've been trying to break up permissions into "Administer", "Create", "Edit", and "View" type permissions which helps but still overwhelms a single page UI.

Has anybody had any success with something like this in the past and, if so, what design pattern worked for you?