Many people who travel are employees. They are just not your employees. No, I didn’t use the elevator–although I was tempted. (That’s the evil part of me.) But it would have been much more convenient. The elevator I was allowed to use made me walk far out of my way on the arrival floor and then back on the baggage claim floor.

Why is it easy for your employees and not me? Why do you trust your employees and not me? Ok, for airport security, it’s probably the right thing to not trust anyone. But I sure would like to see employees use the same entries and exits I use. I don’t see why I should trust anyone when it comes to airport security.

We see this in software all the time. Have a problem with an application, call the service number, and the nice folks fix you up in no time, but not with a command you can use.

Is software security the same as airport security? (I argue no. In some ways it’s much more scary to entrust your vital information to a software application.) What would you have to do to your application to trust me to do the right thing? Even if I’m not your employee?