I left my security system switched off on purpose

The instinct in security is always to turn the lock. Build the wall, enforce the rule, slam the door. It feels like the responsible thing. But there is a trap in it, and the only way to spot it is to look before you leap.

A system that starts enforcing rules on day one does not actually know what your normal looks like yet. It only knows the rules you dreamed up at your desk. And real, everyday work is always messier and more varied than the tidy picture in your head. So the first thing a keen new gatekeeper does is block you, the legitimate operator, getting on with your ordinary job, because your ordinary job does not perfectly match rules written before you had watched a single real day.

Thousands of entries. Nearly every one was me, doing normal, legitimate work. Routine housekeeping, ordinary updates, the everyday running of the place. The number of actual intruders trying to do actual harm was, near enough, none.

So if I had switched that lock to enforcing on day one, the main thing it would have done is get in my own way, thousands of times over, while stopping almost nothing worth stopping. It would have felt secure and mostly just been a nuisance. Worse, after the fiftieth false alarm I would have started ignoring it, which is exactly how a real alert slips through.