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That's a really nice distinction. It feels like there's a bit of a spectrum, though. The lock on a houses door won't prevent a determined criminal, but it send
by colah3 10y ago
That's a really nice distinction.
It feels like there's a bit of a spectrum, though. The lock on a houses door won't prevent a determined criminal, but it sends a very strong signal and is inconvenient to break.
Perhaps we should thing of there as being multiple dimensions to locks, such as security, signaling, effort to circumvent, and convenience? (Perhaps also conscientiousness in disabling, in relation to @saosebastiao's point.)
- Waterluvian 10y agoDefinitely a spectrum. Bike locks are for security, but mainly just to make your bike less convenient than another one nearby. If someone wants into YOUR phone, they'll get it. If someone wants into A phone, a thumbprint may be plenty.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoBeing widespread is a double-edged sword though. The more people have such an inconvenience-based security, the better they are, but if everyone has bike locks, the thieves simply start carrying bolt cutters with them. We're maybe two or three years before majority of smartphones in use have fingerprint scanners...
- threatofrain 10y agoI have a very contrary intuition from literature on crime policy, where the presence of detectable security did not lower home robbery rates for the region, but rather shifted it to unprotected homes and neighborhoods, whereas increases in non-visible security systems lowered crime rates for the region, but didn't provide benefits for the home in question. I recall a similar article on gun ownership in homes, and it noted that gun ownership did not protect any specific home, but rather it decreased home robbery rates for a region.