Roderick Stewart <rjfs@escapetime.nospam.plus.com> writes:

> My goodness it doesn't take much to pass the Turing Test these days. We
> need to distinguish between, on the one hand, brainless electronic
> equipment following automatic procedures which are built into them during
> manufacture, and of which their owners are probably unaware, and on the
> other hand, a human being knowingly making an offer. It's quite common to
> talk loosely of electronic devices "talking" to each other, or
> "negotiating", or asking and receiving "permission", but taking this too
> literally leads to sloppy thinking as it isn't ther same thing. An
> electronic device following its program and responding to another
> electronic device doesn't amount to "permission" at all, unless it has
> the backing of a sentient being who knows what it's doing and wants it to
> behave in that way.

However, nowadays a lot of security access control is handled
electronically. So I think that, in the absence of evidence of
malfunction or tampering, the assumption must be that an electronic
security access system is acting with the authorisation of, and
implementing the policies of, its owner. This should apply just as
much to the case of a wireless router allowing (or blocking) access to
a laptop PC as to the case of an ATM validating your 'access' when you
use a Chip and PIN card to withdraw money.