Large Fierce Mammal

I call this “the urinal model”, and hold it forth as an example of unsound practice in matters involving structural design. When people talk security, they usually think in terms of locked doors, surveillance cameras, and high technology artificially intelligent systems, but for most security solutions these are only layers on the skin of the greater onion that can lead us to overthinking the problem and misdirecting resources. The first things to examine are those that take us back to first principles; the most fundamental human and natural ones:
(1) What procedures can we change to minimize risk?
(2) What physical structural design features can we add, alter, or adopt to minimize risk?

This brings me to the subject of this post; specifically, the good old Automated Teller Machine (ATM). If there was ever a shining example of nearly criminal negligence in design this is it. As the price of admission (aside from extortionate user fees) we are asked to either confine ourselves inside of a barely secured cubicle where we stand with our backs to the door (as well as anyone else in the room) or we have to stand facing the wall of a building with our backs to the world, in both cases relying on a half-assed rear view mirror with a CCTV camera behind it to watch what’s going on behind us. The camera, by the way, is to identify us later and link us to the transactions we are performing in case we commit fraud against the bank. Any other evidence it collects is purely incidental. This, dear readers, is bullshit of the most aromatic kind.

Large cats in Africa stake out a watering hole where the animals they prey on must come to drink and this is sound predatory practice. The ATM is human society’s watering hole and its present incarnation ignores the most basic realities of Nature. An ATM should be built like a podium with open access on either side. The person using it steps behind it and turns to face outward with the wall behind him or her. There is no need to shield your password from nearby onlookers because they’re all in front of you. Suspicious individuals can quickly be identified before they shove a knife or gun in your back.

Modern society needs the ATM and users keep accepting that the banks have our highest level of security at heart. That isn’t what’s going on here. They’re just holding your dick for you.