If you start thinking about it, most security and well being norms are just protected by people that believe in the social norm behaving correctly.
Why can’t you go behind the counter, enter the kitchen and pee in a McDonald’s hamburguer? Not due to some law of nature or magic force field, but because the workers (or security guard) won’t let you. Why won’t they let you? Due to a systematic belief system on the entity “McDonald’s”, their job, what’s right and wrong, etc.
But they could simply let you. A banker could let you take a few $100 bills. The consequences are almost entirely based on social rules.
Sure, but those are cases where someone with the job and authority to stop someone from breaking the rules and is choosing not to. Prescription pads are just these wildly insecure things where once the pad is stolen (which is relatively easy to do), it seems like the system is designed to just blindly trust them. I know that has changed a bit in the modern world, but even that it was once like that seems weird.
Sure, but if I want to get a driver’s license, I can’t just walk up to the DMV with a document on the right letterhead and get a license. There’s actually a whole process involving a test.
The fact that a pharmacy requires a prescription on a certain kind of pad from a doctor means that that’s supposed to be a security measure. It’s supposed to stop someone from getting a prescription that they just scribbled on a random piece of paper they found. But, in terms of security, it’s just about the weakest form of security I can imagine.
In theory. In practice, an employee could skip all steps and pretend you concluded the test.
Yes, they could break the rules.
Similarly, a pharmacy expects that you went through a long process with a doctor diagnosing and ordering the medicine.
While following the rules, they could just accept whatever you wrote onto the paper.
See the difference? In one case the security model is reasonable so that it takes an employee cheating / breaking the rules for a bad result. In the other case the security model sucks so an undesirable outcome is possible even if all the security checks are followed.
If you start thinking about it, most security and well being norms are just protected by people that believe in the social norm behaving correctly.
Why can’t you go behind the counter, enter the kitchen and pee in a McDonald’s hamburguer? Not due to some law of nature or magic force field, but because the workers (or security guard) won’t let you. Why won’t they let you? Due to a systematic belief system on the entity “McDonald’s”, their job, what’s right and wrong, etc.
But they could simply let you. A banker could let you take a few $100 bills. The consequences are almost entirely based on social rules.
You can, at least once. But if you wanted to do it regularly, it’d be easiest to just apply for a job there.
Sure, but those are cases where someone with the job and authority to stop someone from breaking the rules and is choosing not to. Prescription pads are just these wildly insecure things where once the pad is stolen (which is relatively easy to do), it seems like the system is designed to just blindly trust them. I know that has changed a bit in the modern world, but even that it was once like that seems weird.
Well, all it takes for you to drive a metric ton of metal at 120 KM/h in public is somebody signing a document claiming you know how to drive.
The only thing preventing you from creating poisonous gases from two cheap supermarket cleaning products is your own desire.
Sure, but if I want to get a driver’s license, I can’t just walk up to the DMV with a document on the right letterhead and get a license. There’s actually a whole process involving a test.
The fact that a pharmacy requires a prescription on a certain kind of pad from a doctor means that that’s supposed to be a security measure. It’s supposed to stop someone from getting a prescription that they just scribbled on a random piece of paper they found. But, in terms of security, it’s just about the weakest form of security I can imagine.
It’s basically the equivalent of this:
In theory. In practice, an employee could skip all steps and pretend you concluded the test.
Similarly, a pharmacy expects that you went through a long process with a doctor diagnosing and ordering the medicine.
Yes, they could break the rules.
While following the rules, they could just accept whatever you wrote onto the paper.
See the difference? In one case the security model is reasonable so that it takes an employee cheating / breaking the rules for a bad result. In the other case the security model sucks so an undesirable outcome is possible even if all the security checks are followed.