Security vs Convenience

I really like Cryptogram and read every issue. It's interesting stuff that talks a lot about how our minds work in conjunction with risk and reward. Today I had a typical example of how security versus convenience is a part of day to day life.

I had just checked out from my hotel, and wanted to store all my luggage (including my laptop bag) in the hotel until my ride out of town arrived. I asked about this, and it was fine, they had a room for this. The person in the reception pointed me to an open room and said it was open and that I could put my stuff there. Feeling uneasy I asked how secure it was, and she answered that the door was usually locked. OK, I said, but can someone take any bag from inside of there? Yes, was the answer. I decided I couldn't store my stuff there. Even if the risk was small, losing my work laptop would be way to bad to risk. But I also decided I couldn't drag my two heavy bags and laptop bag around.

I ended up putting the large bags in the room, and just taking my laptop bag around. I didn't have as much to lose with the large bags, and the price of inconvenience in taking them along was just to high. These considerations go into everything we do in programming and systems engineering. A totally secure system is generally quite inconvenient to use, while an insecure system can be very pleasant to use. The trick is to get the balance right, I guess.